![]() | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract Stroke remains a major global cause of death, ranking second in mortality rates and significantly contributing to depression and dementia. In the absence of proper care, survivors of stroke face an elevated risk of dependency on caregivers and substantial limitations in their societal engagement. This burden is anticipated to rise further due to aging populations, necessitating the development of more effective treatment options. Currently, treatment options for AIS are largely restricted to reperfusion therapies i.e., intravenous thrombolysis and endovascular thrombectomy. Many patients do not qualify for these therapies, and even among those who do, the percentage of patients achieving favourable outcomes is still lagging behind the desired results. Freezing the penumbra is one of the promising and innovative approaches to expanding the salvageable penumbra volume at the time of reperfusion, ultimately improving final outcomes. Transcranial direct current stimulation emerges as a promising tool in the management of various neurological diseases, including stroke. It is a noninvasive brain stimulation technique that utilizes a constant, low-intensity electrical current to modulate neuronal activity within the cerebral cortex. It primarily regulates the resting potential threshold of neurons by applying direct currents to specific target areas, influencing the excitability of the cerebral cortex and leading to a range of therapeutic effects. Many animal studies have shown promising effects of C-tDCS on clinical and radiological outcomes in cases of acute ischemic stroke, where modified neurological deficit score and final infarct volume showed notable improvements. Our concern in this study was to highlight the potential neuroprotective effects of C-tDCS in the acute phase of stroke through its hypothesized effects in counteracting excitotoxicity and CSD. Our study included 32 Egyptian patients who were randomly assigned into two equal groups, each including 16 patients, where “group I” received active C-tDCS, while “group II” received sham tDCS. Both groups were matched regarding baseline characteristics and size of infarction. Post intervention, our results showed no statistically significant difference between active and sham groups. However, clinical and radiological outcomes showed a tendency towards favourable outcomes suggesting the role of C-tDCS in acute MCA stroke and necessitating further studies on larger numbers of patients |