Is there a role for blood biomarkers in stroke?

A thorough review can be found here, from a recent edition of Stroke journal. The authors conclude:

The need to improve the diagnosis of stroke and cause of stroke has motivated the search for biomarkers. Although sev- eral markers have shown promise, as yet none have sufficient evidence to support use in clinical practice. Ischemic stroke is a heterogeneous disorder and a single biomarker may not be able to reflect this complexity. A biomarker panel may be able to better reflect the diverse pathophysiology involved in stroke and thereby distinguish ischemic stroke from hemorrhage, predict which TIAs proceed to stroke, and predict causes of stroke. Initial studies of biomarker panels indicate improved diagnostic sensitivity and specificity can be achieved in stroke relative to individual markers. However, efforts are needed to better define the molecular biology of stroke including determination of the involved proteins, RNA, metabolites, and lipids. Omic-based approaches are proving useful to identify novel markers relevant to stroke biology and biomarker development. As these markers are identified, assembling them into biomarker panels offers promise to achieve the rigorous requirements of a diagnostic clinical stroke biomarker.

Seems like the field is similar to myocardial infarction biomarkers was a decade or more ago.