A brain scan followed by quick drug treatment in the right patients can stop a stroke in its tracks.
A brain scan followed by quick drug treatment in the right patients can stop a stroke in its tracks.
It's been a long and often controversial road, but U.S. doctors are finally embracing a drug that can halt strokes and prevent disabling brain damage.
An analysis of more than 1 million stroke patients shows that use of the 17-year-old drug, called alteplase (brand-name Activase), nearly doubled between 2003 and 2011.
The study indicates that use of the therapy jumped from 43 percent to 77 percent over the past decade among those lucky patients who got to a hospital within two hours of their first stroke symptoms and had no disqualifying factors.
"That's very encouraging," study author Dr. Deepak Bhatt tells Shots. "That's a very large increase. But 23 percent of eligible patients still aren't getting it."
Alteplase treatment doesn't guarantee a good outcome. But studies have shown that 30 percent of stroke patients who get it have less long-term disability, and some patients have remarkable recoveries. Twelve percent recover with little or no disability.
The results show that many U.S. hospitals are recognizing the need for speed in treating a stroke in progress with clotbusting therapy. They also suggest that doctors are getting more comfortable with using the drug properly. It can cause dangerous brain hemorrhages if used in the wrong patients.
The analysis was published by a journal called Circulation Cardiovascular Quality Outcomes.
Encouraged as he is, Bhatt, a stroke specialist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, acknowledges that the data "might represent a best-case scenario."
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More Stroke Patients Now Get Clotbusting Drug