The UNC School of Medicine has been awarded a $19.9 million five-year federal grant for a national clinical trial to determine if brain bypass surgery can prevent stroke.
The Carotid Occlusion Surgery Study is headed by Dr. William J. Powers, the H. Houston Merritt Distinguished Professor and chair of neurology at UNC.
Sponsored by the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the multi-center study will determine if a branch of an artery that supplies blood to the scalp can be used to bypass blockages of a major neck artery that supplies blood to the brain.
The study is enrolling patients at 41 medical centers in the U.S. and Canada.
School of Medicine contact: Les Lang, 966-9366, leslie_lang@med.unc.edu
News Services contact: Patric Lane, (919) 962-8596, patric_lane@unc.edu