Sutter Stroke Center is a tertiary-care program that receives referrals from throughout Northern California and serves as a regional resource center for doctors, employers, insurers and the community at large. Medical staff at the center is available to provide doctors with expertise on managing particular cases, offering triage guidance and making diagnostic tests and treatments

Emergency Referrals Doctors who wish to refer patients on an emergent basis, please call (916) 697-4282 (697-4CVA). This number is for emergency physician/hospital referrals only. For all other questions, please call the Physician's Strokeline at (916) 454-6979. If you or someone else is having a stroke, call 9-1-1 to be taken at once to the nearest stroke center.

available to patients initially treated at outlying hospitals that are part of or separate from the Sutter Health system. Stroke team members are available on call to facilitate emergent stroke transfers.

Diagnostic Tools

Sutter Stroke Center offers exceptional diagnostic and treatment tools, as well as surgical skills to help prevent stroke even in those patients at risk through birth defects, trauma, unruptured aneurysms and other serious conditions. Stroke-related diagnostic tools include:

• CT scanning, including CT angiography (CTA or 3D angiography) and CT perfusion (CTP)


• MRI, including diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI), MR angiography (MRA), and MR venography (MRV)


• Catheter angiography


• Extracranial ultrasonography


• Transcranial Doppler


• Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography


• PET and SPECT imaging


• Clinical laboratory testing

With the exception of PET and SPECT imaging, which are available off site, all diagnostic imaging and laboratory testing is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Prevention Therapies

As part of Sutter Neuroscience Institute, the center has access to Sutter Gamma Knife Radiosurgery Center for non-invasive treatment of arteriovascular malformations. Sutter Stroke Center also offers surgeons skilled at microsurgery to clip aneurysms and endovascular surgical neuroradiologists who can treat aneurysm through endovascular coiling techniques [link to 2.4 Treatment section on Hemorrhagic Stroke] before they rupture and cause damage.

Consultation

Sutter Stroke Center specialists are available to provide expertise in managing cases. To arrange a consultation, please contact (888) 834-1788.

Patient Referrals

To refer a patient for diagnosis or care, please contact (888) 834-1788.