20 May 15. Prof Rustam Al-Shahi Salman

Professor Rustam Al-Shahi Salman, Professor of Clinical Neurology, discusses his research into bleeding in the brain, specifically the research programme he runs, 'RUSH'.

 

Transcript - Prof Rustam Al-Shahi Salman, 2015

"Hello, my name’s Rustam Al-Shahi Salman, and I’m a Professor of Clinical Neurology and MRC Senior Clinical Fellow here at the University of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Consultant Neurologist in NHS Lothian.

I run the 'Research to understand stroke due to haemorrhage', or 'RUSH' research programme. I’m fascinated by anything that bleeds in the brain. In fact there are a lot of things we don’t know about in our brain, which one day might bleed.

Scanning studies of thousands of healthy individuals have shown that one in thirty-seven people have an abnormality in their brain that might one day cause a problem – you see that illustrated here, with thirty-seven brains, one of which is red and might one day cause a problem.  

Not only is the potential for these abnormalities to cause a problem and how best to prevent them a major issue, but so too is how we might treat brain haemorrhage when it happens. Brain haemorrhage affects about fifteen thousand people in the UK every year and a couple of million people worldwide, and almost half of those people will die within a month of the brain haemorrhage occurring. The dilemma for the half of the people who may die is how we can best treat them when they first present to hospital to improve their outcome. The dilemma for the other half who survive is what we can do to maximise their health and prevent recurrence.

It’s such an important problem and such a devastating disease, that that’s why I’ve chosen to devote the rest of my career to the RUSH research programme."

 

Relevant links

 

Relevant Edinburgh Imaging publications

 

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