| In fact, one of the reasons why it has been so | | | | and down through the chest and abdomen. If the |
| hard to develop an effective treatment for | | | | aorta develops big plaques, the wall can lose |
| stroke is that, clinically, it is impossible to tell the | | | | structural integrity and balloon outwards, creating |
| difference between an infarct/blockage, and a | | | | a great big 'aneurysm'. |
| bleed/haemorrhage. You need to do a brain scan | | | | This is like having an unexploded bomb in your |
| to know, for sure, what type of stroke has | | | | chest, just waiting to go off. And when an artery |
| occurred. | | | | this big fails -kaboom! In medical speak, this is |
| You can't give a clot-busting drug to someone | | | | known as a ruptured aortic aneurysm. In general, |
| having a stroke, because, if they are having a | | | | it is something to be avoided. Some people |
| 'bleed; the drugs will make things far, far, worse. | | | | survive, so long as the leak is small, that is. Heart |
| In fact, you will almost certainly kill them. And, by | | | | disease is really a disease of the arteries supplying |
| the time you have managed to get a brain scan | | | | blood to the heart. The 'disease' is atherosclerosis |
| done, it is usually too late to give any drug at all, | | | | (or the development of discrete atherosclerotic |
| because the damage will already have been done. | | | | plaques). |
| Moving on from that cheery subject. | | | | Plaques can also develop in arteries almost |
| Apart from the heart and the brain, you can have | | | | anywhere in the body. Plaques are dangerous |
| infarctions in the kidneys, the guts, the eyes - | | | | when they burst, or rupture; as this stimulates |
| almost anywhere, in fact. Perhaps the scariest | | | | the formation of a blood clot over the ruptured |
| place to develop big plaques is in the aorta, the | | | | area. This can completely block the artery, |
| major blood vessel that leads out of the heart | | | | causing the tissue downstream to infarct. |