%0 Journal Article
%T Bio-Repository of DNA in stroke (BRAINS): A study protocol
%A Sunaina Yadav
%A Renata Schanz
%A Ankita Maheshwari
%A Muhammad Khan
%A Julia Slark
%A Ranil de Silva
%A Paul Bentley
%A Philippe Froguel
%A Jaspal Kooner
%A Padma Shrivastav
%A Kameshwar Prasad
%A Pankaj Sharma
%J BMC Medical Genetics
%D 2011
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2350-12-34
%X The proposed Bio-Repository of DNA in Stroke (BRAINS) will recruit all subtypes of stroke as well as controls from two different continents, Europe and Asia. Subjects recruited from the UK will include stroke patients of European ancestry as well as British South Asians. Stroke subjects from South Asia will be recruited from India and Sri Lanka. South Asian cases will also have control subjects recruited.We describe a study protocol to establish a large and highly characterized stroke biobank in those of European and South Asian descent. With different ethnic populations being recruited, BRAINS has the ability to compare and contrast genetic risk factors between those of differing ancestral descent as well as those who migrate into different environments.Evidence shows that stroke incidence rates in developing South Asian countries have increased by more than 100% during the last four decades, while they have decreased by 42% in developed European countries over the same time period [1]. Over a four-decade period, stroke incidence rates increased from 52 per 100,000 person-years (1970-1979) to 117 per 100,000 person-years (2000-2008) and at this rate stroke is expected to become one of the major causes of death in South Asia [1]. While much of this increase may be attributed to changing lifestyles, a high percentage of all strokes occur without any obvious aetiological cause suggesting additional factors that contribute to the stroke risk variability between ethnic groups. The ethnic differences may arise due to varying lifestyles, differences in medical treatment or the inherent genetic makeup.Dissecting the genetic causes of a complex disorder such as stroke and estimating their relative attributable risks, necessitates a large study cohort in-order to provide sufficient power to the analysis. Herein, we describe a study protocol of two ongoing prospective, multicenter recruitment studies, BRAINS-UK and BRAINS-South Asia which aims to recruit 1500 highly character
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2350/12/34