Deans' stroke musings: New drug treatment could offer stroke survivors better outcomes

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

New drug treatment could offer stroke survivors better outcomes - Tenecteplase

I'm betting 50 years before this is rolled out to stroke hospitals. Trillions of neurons will die as a result of that delay.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-02-drug-treatment-survivors-outcomes.html
Promising results for a new drug treatment for ischaemic stroke patients have been published today in the journal Lancet Neurology.

A new drug treatment, Tenecteplase, has been shown to have similar outcomes in limiting the damage done in the brain after a stroke compared with current treatments. Crucially however, it is also far easier to administer and may also be safer.
Ischaemic strokes are caused by a blood clot blocking a blood vessel in the brain, and are treated by injecting 'clot-busting' drugs that dissolve the blood clot, restoring blood flow. There is a crucial four and a half hour window after an ischaemic stroke in which giving clot-busting drug treatment is effective in limiting damage and improving outcome.
Currently, only one drug – Alteplase – is used for acute treatment of stroke. The study, led by Professor Keith Muir, SINAPSE Chair of Clinical Imaging and Consultant Neurologist at the University of Glasgow, compared Alteplase with a newer clot-busting drug called Tenecteplase.
The study, funded by the Stroke Association, showed that incidences of serious adverse events did not differ between the two groups and all neurological and radiological outcomes were similar, despite by chance there being slightly more very severe strokes in the Tenecteplase group. The results also revealed that potentially fewer people had a brain haemorrhage as a complication of treatment with Tenecteplase.
Researchers believe that, as Tenecteplase can be given more easily than Alteplase, it could become a less expensive and easier to administer treatment for ischaemic stroke patients; a larger clinical trial will be needed in the to test Tenecteplase fully, and plans for such a trial are at an advanced stage.
Professor Muir said: "Every minute is crucial in treating stroke and we need better treatment options. Any treatment that is easier to deliver and potentially safer could mean the difference between a good recovery and someone suffering seriously debilitating long term effects.
"We are planning a larger scale trial to investigate these results further."
Dr Dale Webb, Director of Research and Information at the Stroke Association, said: "The brain damage caused by a stroke can leave people facing a devastating level of disability. Currently, our only tool to treat ischaemic stroke, caused by a blockage of an artery in the brain, is thrombolysis. This type of treatment benefits around one in seven people treated. There is only one drug licensed for thrombolysis, which is Alteplase.
"This important research investigating an alternative to Alteplase could pave the way for an improvement in thrombolysis. A more effective way to deliver clot-busting treatment to stroke patients could be life-changing; when stroke strikes, time saved is brain saved."