Mini 'arteries-on-a-chip' could help predict a person's risk of stroke

Researchers have pioneered a way to create miniaturized copies of a person's carotid artery that could help doctors predict and manage the patient's stroke risk, a new study suggests.

In the research, published in July in the journal Cell Biomaterials , scientists used these "arteries-on-a-chip" to monitor how real blood flows through a patient's carotid arteries, which carry blood to the brain, face and neck.

This could enable doctors to identify not just how and what type of clots form in that specific patient, but also determine which medications would be most effective in dealing with the blockage.

While the technique is currently a proof-of-concept, someday, it could help medical practitioners to better tailor treatments for each patient.

"I see this approach being most relevant to difficult clinical cases," said study first author Charles Zhao , a doctoral student at the University of Sydney.

"For example, patients who have experienced recurrent events despite treatment, or cases where clinicians have several possible treatment strategies but limited functional information to distinguish between them." Zhao told Live Science in an email.

Ischemic stroke is one of the leading causes of death worldwide , second only to heart disease.

The medical emergency is most often caused by a loose blood clot blocking an artery in the brain, starving the cells of oxygen.

Obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol are all important risk factors for ischemic stroke, and roughly 1 in 5 of these events results from atherosclerosis , or fatty plaque buildup in the arteries.

"When the inner lining of an artery is damaged, material underneath the cells, including collagen, becomes exposed to the blood," Zhao said.

A bloodborne protein called von Willebrand factor (VWF) grabs hold of platelets from the flowing blood.

Those platelets then stick together and recruit more platelets, building a clot, he said.

But forming a clot is only half the story; it's what this mass does next that determines the risk to the patient.

In some cases, the growing ball of clotted blood will stay firmly rooted to the artery wall, slightly impeding blood flow but not posing any immediate danger.