One promising field in neurovascular diseases investigation is the use of biomarkers to guide stroke etiology diagnosis and classification. Since treatment differs among etiologic subtypes and nowadays many patients receive a diagnosis of undetermined stroke, biomarkers might become an important additional diagnostic tool. In this review we update current knowledge about biomarkers related with cardioembolic stroke etiology (such as BNP and D-dimer proteins, or PITX2 and ZFHX3 genes), that in the future, might allow rapidly guiding other diagnostic tests and accelerating the onset of an optimal secondary prevention.
Keywords: Biomarker; cardioembolic; classification; etiology; natriuretic peptides; stroke..