Far from home: making stroke diagnosis more powerful at rural hospitals

Inspiring Minds seeks to broaden awareness and impact of graduate student research, while enhancing transferable skills. Students were challenged to describe their research, scholarship or creative activity in 150 or fewer words to share with our community.

<hr/>

Imagine you’re on vacation in a rural community and your loved one suffers a stroke. Life-saving treatments for stroke are available, but the rural hospital was short-staffed and lacked the required expertise to identify a treatable stroke. This is the devastating reality for over 30% of all stroke patients in Ontario. Recent advancements in stroke diagnosis have made automated treatment recommendations possible using advanced x-ray CT scans and computer software that analyzes a stroke victim’s brain blood flow. Though this technology seems essential at under-staffed rural hospitals, it is not yet readily available because obtaining the advanced CT scan requires trained technicians. To address this important limitation, we developed a new technique that allows simple routine CT scans to be used to analyze brain blood flow and make reliable treatment recommendations. Our innovative technique has the potential to save your loved one’s life – no matter where they are.

Kevin Chung
PhD Candidate - Medical Biophysics
Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry - Western University

Supervisor
Ting-Yim Lee

<br>

<hr/>

Kevin is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Medical Biophysics at Western University. In 2019, he completed a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Calgary. Through a year-long undergraduate research internship with the Calgary Stroke Program, he was introduced to medical image analysis and is continuing this research at Western. His goal is to make stroke diagnosis more accessible and reliable at rural communities by improving medical imaging software. Kevin is supported by a CIHR Doctoral Research Award.

You can learn more about Kevin's research on Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=t-IK3zEAAAAJ&hl=en

View Kevin's work as it appears in the Inspiring Minds Digital Collection.