Stroke Expert Joseph Broderick Awarded AHA Clinical Research Prize

CINCINNATI—University of Cincinnati (UC) stroke researcher Joseph Broderick, MD, was awarded the American Heart Association’s (AHA) Clinical Research Prize today "for exemplary contributions to advances in stroke treatment and patient care that have changed medical practice as we know it.”

Broderick, Albert Barnes Voorheis Chair of Neurology at UC, received the award during the opening ceremony of the AHA Scientific Sessions 2011 in Orlando, Fla. He is the first stroke investigator to receive the Clinical Research Prize.

Broderick was cited for his leadership in clinical research and patient trials demonstrating the effectiveness of the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, to treat acute ischemic stroke. Such a stroke occurs when an artery to the brain is blocked, typically by a blood clot. Intravenous (IV) tPA is the only federally approved treatment for stroke caused by a blood clot.

UC researchers, including Broderick, played a leading role in developing and testing IV tPA as a treatment for acute ischemic stroke in the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Broderick also was one of the founding members of the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Stroke Team, which was the first regional stroke team in the United States. In addition, Broderick is research director of the UC Neuroscience Institute, which includes the UC Cerebrovascular Disease and Stroke Center.

"This award really reflects the accomplishments of a tremendous team of stroke physicians, nurses and researchers at the University of Cincinnati that I have had the privilege of working with for the past 25 years,” Broderick said, "as well as the generosity and courage of over 25,000 persons in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky who have participated in one of our epidemiologic or genetics studies, stroke surveys or clinical trials since the 1980s.”

"In the all-important area of therapy for acute ischemic stroke, Dr. Broderick is one of only a few who have definitely changed medical practice,” said AHA President Gordon Tomaselli, MD, who presented the prize. "He and his colleagues at the University of Cincinnati have been leaders in the testing of intravenous recombinant tPA for treatment of ischemic stroke. The clinical program that they have created is the widely heralded model of enlightened stroke care.”

Broderick and his colleagues at UC have pioneered other new approaches to ischemic stroke including a combination of intra-arterial and intravenous tPA and the use of mechanical clot-removal devices, Tomaselli said.

Findings by Broderick and his colleagues concerning a lack of public knowledge about stroke laid the foundation for new campaigns by the AHA and American Stroke Association to increase awareness of stroke risk factors and warning signs, Tomaselli noted.