It was 4 a.m. on a snowy Christmas Eve as Linda Quire lay in her hospital room with her head shaved. She and a doctor wore special goggles to protect their eyes as the physician aimed an experimental laser device through her scalp and skull into her brain.
Quire’s treatment at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison last month was part of a clinical trial to test a novel method for protecting brain cells hours after a stroke. Doctors say such therapies are desperately needed because most stroke victims don’t get to a hospital soon enough.