MUcociliary Clearance IN Stroke

Summary

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Description

Survival and functional outcome of stroke is strongly depending on the occurence of pneumonia (stroke-associated pneumonia, SAP). Early diagnose and treatment of SAP is paramount in the treatment of stroke patients. While dysphagia strongly contributes to its pathogenesis, recent years have also sho...

Survival and functional outcome of stroke is strongly depending on the occurence of pneumonia (stroke-associated pneumonia, SAP). Early diagnose and treatment of SAP is paramount in the treatment of stroke patients. While dysphagia strongly contributes to its pathogenesis, recent years have also shown a strong risk-modulation by CNS injury induced immunosuppression, making stroke patients more susceptible to SAP. Additionally, murine models of stroke showed changes in mucociliary clearance as possible contributors to SAP. It remains unclear, whether structural integrity and mucociliary clearance of the respiratory epithel change in stroke patients, and whether these changes might contribute to the occurence of SAP. Therefore, the investigators designed this exploratory observational pilot-study to examine the structural and functional integrity of respiratory epithel in severely affected stroke patients and correlate these findings to immune phenotyping and occurence of SAP. The investigators will conduct bronchoscopy in severely affected stroke patients to collect histological samples in order to evaluate multiple tissue predictors, as well as perform optical coherence tomography to examine ciliary kinetics in-vivo. The investigators will furthermore perform serum and plasma immune phenotyping, record occuring pneumonias and correlate these data in order to identify possible predictors of pneumonia.

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