Synopsis

Stroke affects approximately 200-300 Australian children per year. One-quarter of paediatric strokes occur in newborns, one-third in children less than one year, and one-half in children less than five years. The catchcry in emergency stroke treatment that “time is brain” is equally applicable to children because failure to save brain results in poorer outcomes for patients who face decades of living with disability.  The key priorities to optimising outcomes are to increase access to reperfusion therapies that save viable brain by restoring blood flow.

In this Grand Round, Associate Professor Mark Mackay will present advances in acute stroke care, through implementation of standardised paediatric “Code Stroke” protocols, to facilitate rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke, and how the Melbourne Children’s campus is leading the way in changing practice nationally and improving outcomes for the youngest stroke survivors.

Speaker

Associate Professor Mark Mackay is Director of the Department of RCH Neurology. He is a Clinician-Scientist Fellow and Director of the Paediatric Stroke Research Program at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.

He is a founding Board member of the International Paediatric Stroke Organization, Executive Committee member of the International Paediatric Stroke Study and Stroke Foundation of Australia Clinical Council member.

Mark established a dedicated paediatric stroke program at RCH in 2004; the first of its kind in Australia. His research focuses on understanding the causes and consequences of childhood stroke and improving accuracy and timeliness of stroke diagnosis. He has authored over 200 publications and has secured more than 7 million dollars in research funding.

Mark chaired the development of the Australian best-practice guidelines for the diagnosis and acute management of childhood stroke. He is the lead investigator on the Australian multi-centre PACS study to implement a national paediatric code stroke protocol to bridge the gap between children and adults in accessing reperfusion therapies.