Circulating miRNA profiles and the risk of hemorrhagic transformation after thrombolytic treatment of acute ischemic stroke: a pilot study

BackgroundHemorrhagic transformation (HT) in acute ischemic stroke is likely to occur in patients treated with intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) and may lead to neurological deterioration and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH). Despite the complex inclusion and exclusion criteria for IVT and some useful tools to stratify HT risk, sICH still occurs in approximately 6% of patients because some of the risk factors for this complication remain unknown.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore whether there are any differences in circulating microRNA (miRNA) profiles between patients who develop HT after thrombolysis and those who do not.MethodsUsing qPCR, we quantified the expression of 84 miRNAs in plasma samples collected prior to thrombolytic treatment from 10 individuals who eventually developed HT and 10 patients who did not. For miRNAs that were downregulated (fold change (FC) 1.5) with p