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Lester Leung on Launching a New Era in Preventing Silent Stroke and Dementia

Lester Leung;David Kent/Tufts Medicine

Feb 6, 2026, 16:41

Lester Leung on Launching a New Era in Preventing Silent Stroke and Dementia

Lester Leung, Chief of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases at Tufts Medical Center, shared on LinkedIn:

”Ready to launch!

After 10 years, 3 NIH R01s, 1 ADDF grant, and a lot of blood/sweat/tears, the work that David Kent and I have been working on with covert cerebrovascular diseases (silent stroke, aka silent brain infarcts aka covert brain infarcts, and WMD aka white matter disease) is finally on the launch pad to propel forwards clinical trials for prevention of stroke and dementia.

Millions of people undergo head CTs and brain MRIs and have these forms of vascular brain injury as incidental – but meaningful – findings.

But no one evers tells patients about them… until now.

In our pilot clinic, we identified patients with an AI we built and found that people with CCD show up and are motivated to improve their brain health!

They have targetable risk factors and lifestyle behaviors, prevalent mild cognitive impairment, and genuine gratitude to have the opportunity to talk to a clinician about ways to keep their brains healthy.

Our next step will be clinical trials to prevent symptomatic stroke and dementia (Alzheimers, vascular, mixed).

This truly is an exciting time as we find earlier opportunities to bend the curve of stroke prevention and dementia prevention towards better brain health!

Many thanks to Elizabeth Rosen, M.D. and colleagues at Kaiser Permanente, Navdeep (Navi) Sangha and Mai Nguyen-Huynh and Calgary Eric Smith for running this pilot clinic study with us!”

Lester Leung on Launching a New Era in Preventing Silent Stroke and Dementia