The stroke in an emergency: the grey areas.

In spite of the development of advanced technologies, diagnosis and therapy for an ictus in emergency still pose difficulties in a significant percentage of cases. Diagnostic problems are encountered both when faced with focal symptoms and in the presence of disturbances to consciousness, confusional states, vertigo or cephalea. The most significant therapeutic problems, on the other hand, are encountered in the case of extended cardioembolic ischaemias, haemorrhages from venous thrombosis and intradural arterial dissections (eventual antithrombotic treatment), when faced with a large cerebral oedema (eventual medical and/or surgical treatment), or in indicating surgery for intraparenchymal haemorrhages or symptomatic stenotic carotids.