Between 7 and 9 October, Vall d'Hebron hosted the III Stroke Congress of the national network RICORS-ICTUS and a symposium focused on cerebral haemorrhage that brought together, in total, more than 150 experts in the research of the disease. The meeting, which was organised with the participation of the Neurovascular Diseases group of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), was held this year for the first time in Barcelona.

RICORS-ICTUS network, funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, is made up of 23 research groups and other associated clinical groups from all over Spain and aims to improve the prognosis of stroke patients through the study of biomarkers, treatments for the acute phase, brain protection, repair and secondary prevention. It is a network coordinated by the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, in which VHIR participates, which was born from the need to respond to one of the diseases with the greatest social and health impact due to the deaths and disability it causes. To this end, one of the main objectives of the network is to promote collaborative research and the training of stroke research professionals.

This year, professionals from about 30 hospitals or biomedical research centres in Spain have attended the III Stroke Congress of the RICORS-ICTUS network, which is held annually, with a programme in which advances in clinical and translational research in stroke have been presented, as well as the results of collaborative projects between the different groups that are part of the network.

Dr. Mar Hernández, principal investigator of the Neurovascular Diseases group at VHIR, has participated in the organisation of the meeting as a member of the scientific committee; and Dr. Anna Rosell, head of the same group, in the local organising committee. The collaboration with Hospital 12 de Octubre, Hospital Germans Trias i Pujol, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and the Instituto de Investigación de Santiago de Compostela has been key to promote this initiative with the support of the RICORS-ICTUS network.

Brain haemorrhage: the focus of an international symposium

Cerebral haemorrhage is a devastating disease with still high mortality and disability rates but little visibility. Even so, it is of great interest among clinical and translational researchers dedicated to stroke research who work in the field of therapeutics, preclinical models, biological or imaging biomarkers, blood haemodynamics, among others.

In this context, and within the framework of the III Stroke Congress and the training vocation of the RICORS-ICTUS network, a training activity has been promoted and carried out with the support of the International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism (ISCBFM), an international scientific society with more than 40 years of history that promotes the advancement of education in the science of blood flow and cerebral metabolism.

The programme of the symposium, which featured national and international speakers, was divided into two days: the first, with an inaugural lecture on the current state of clinical management of intracerebral haemorrhage and its impact on global health, and the second with invited talks and oral presentations on different aspects of brain haemorrhage research, current treatments and clinical advances or the use of biomarkers.