New Drug May Save Stroke Victims

POSTED: 5:27 pm EST February 24, 2005
UPDATED: 5:55 pm EST February 24, 2005

Stroke is the leading cause of serious long-term disability in the
United States, afflicting more than 2.5 million Americans and killing
nearly 200,000 each year.

When a suspected stroke victim goes to a hospital, the first thing
doctors have to determine is what kind of stroke they're having. About
80 percent of strokes are what doctors call ischemic strokes, in which a
blood clot travels along a brain artery until it gets caught and blocks
blood flow.

But about 15 percent are bleeding strokes, where a blood vessel has
burst in the brain.

Doctors can treat ischemic stroke with clot-busting drugs but, as Dr.
Stephan Mayer, of Columbia University Medical Center, explained, "For
the ischemic strokes, we have TPA. It's a clot-buster. But for these
bleeding strokes, called intracerebral hemorrhage, this is a much more
deadly disease and we've had no treatments so far."

But now a study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported on the
first effective treatment for bleeding strokes. It's a drug called
activated factor -7. Borrowed from hemophiliacs -- people whose blood
doesn't clot well -- its effect on bleeding stroke victims is dramatic.

"The patients with these brain hemorrhages who got this treatment within
four hours of onset were almost 40 percent less likely to die. Not only
that, it doubled to tripled the likelihood of surviving with a good
recovery," Mayer said.

The factor-7 is given through an IV in just a couple of minutes and
seems to supercharge the clotting system to stop the bleeding in the
broken brain artery. Experts are calling this a potentially major
advance in stroke therapy.

"If we can confirm these results, this is going to be a standard of care
and I think we're going to save a lot of lives," Mayer said.
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