John David Spence

Who is John David Spence?

John David Spence is a Canadian medical doctor, medical researcher and professor at the University of Western Ontario. Along with his affiliation with the University of Western Ontario he is affiliated with the London Health Sciences Centre’s University Hospital and the Robarts Research Institute, one of Canada’s leading medical research organizations. He is a recognized expert in stroke prevention and stroke prevention research and has published over 200 articles in medical journals in the last 35 years.

Dr. Spence is the director of the Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Centre located at the Robarts Research Institute. With Maria Dicicco, RVT, he pioneered the measurement of total plaque area in a patient’s carotid artery using ultrasound technology. The ability to measure TPA gives doctors the ability to treat, and measure the change in, the amount of plaque in a patient’s arteries and has given researchers the ability to measure the effectiveness of new drug treatment therapies for stroke prevention. Dr. Spence is recognized as “The Father of Total Plaque Area Measurement” and the importance of TPA measurement is, in Dr Spence’s words, “We can now treat arteries instead of just treating risk factors”.