An experimental stroke treatment could save four out of five patients suffering a particularly lethal stroke complication resulting in bleeding in the watery spaces between brain tissue.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins found that administering a clot-busting drug called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) in these spaces in the brain can cut the death rate from 80 percent to 20 percent.
Stroke centers around the country are capable of reproducing the Hopkins-led study?s results, said Dr. Wendy Ziai, lead researcher for Johns Hopkins Hospital, but she cautioned, “You?d be on your own” in terms of liability.
More large-scale testing is needed to ensure there are no harmful side effects, she said. “One of the reasons people have been cautious to use tPA in the brain is it can induce more hemorrhaging, which can in itself be lethal.”
The treatment, as reported Tuesday at the European Stroke Conference in Nice, France, targets a condition known as intracerebral hemorrhage. In these cases, blood clotting between lobes of the brain increased pressure, causing irreversible damage or death, according to the study.
“We?ve gone from what?s usually an 80 percent death rate in patients with this condition to an 80 percent survival rate,” said study leader Dr. Daniel Hanley, professor of neurology at Hopkins.
High doses ? 80 to 100 milligrams ? break up clots in heart attacks and other types of strokes, Hanley said.
The study, performed at 20 hospitals in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Germany, recruited 52 patients who had been treated using a catheter to drain fluid around the brain. Using the same catheter, they were administered 0.3 to 1 milligram of tPA every 12 hours or so.
The clots dissolved within three to four days on average, and patients did not bleed more than those who did not receive the drug, according to the study.
The researchers plan to start a definitive trial to test this treatment in 500 patients in the near future.
