The poor translational success rate of preclinical stroke research may partly be due to inaccurate modelling of the disease. We provide data on transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO) experiments including detailed intraoperative monitoring to elaborate predictors indicating experimental success (ischemia without occurrence of confounding pathologies). The tMCAO monitoring data (bilateral cerebral blood flow – CBF, heart rate – HR, mean arterial pressure – MAP) of 16 animals with an “ideal” outcome (MCA-ischemia) and 48 animals with additional or other pathologies (subdural hematoma or subarachnoid hemorrhage) were checked for their prognostic performance (receiver operating characteristic curve and area under the curve – AUC). Animals showing a decrease in the contralateral CBF at the time of MCA occlusion suffered from unintended pathologies. Implementation of baseline MAP in addition to baseline HR (AUC 0.83, 95% CI 0.68 to 0.97) increased prognostic relevance (AUC 0.89, 95% CI 0.79 to 0.98). Prediction performance improved when two additional predictors referring differences in left and right CBF were considered (AUC 1.00, 95% CI 1.0 to 1.0). Our data underline the importance of periinterventional monitoring to verify a successful experimental performance in order to ensure a disease model as homogeneous as possible.
© 2020. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

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