Thursday, September 07, 2006
Stopping Brain Bleeding
September 6 - It sounds frightening and bleeding in the brain is a scary type of stroke. But, now a new therapy is working wonders.
Intracerebral hemorrhaging, or brain bleeding, is a scary type of stroke. It makes up 15 percent of all strokes, and there are no effective treatments for it. Ninety percent of patients are dead within a month if it's a large hemorrhage in a deep brain structure. But now, a new therapy seems to stop the bleeding in its tracks.
These houses are the fruits of Clifford Golatt Jr.'s labor. For more than 20 years, he worked as a brick mason. But he went from laying bricks to laying in a hospital bed after having a stroke five months ago.
"Just went dead all of sudden," Golatt says. "That's when I knew I was having a stroke, you know. I told them I was having a stroke, and they thought I was telling a fib, but I wasn't."
Clifford suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage, a type of stroke that's often fatal and has no effective treatments.
"It's about the most frustrating situation you can imagine," Christiana Hall, M.D., a neurologist at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, tells Ivanhoe.
Dr. Hall is one researcher from 100 sites worldwide studying the clotting drug NovoSeven. If it is given within the first few hours after a stroke, it seems to stop the hemorrhage in its tracks.
"The earlier we can get to patients with hemorrhage, the better opportunity they will have for recovery," Dr. Hall says.
Golatt's scan at the time of stroke and after showed the hemorrhage had hardly grown. He was part of the study and doesn't know yet if actually received NovoSeven or a placebo drug. But he was paralyzed on the right side of his body when he came into the hospital. Five days later, he was able to lift that side. And now he's walking!
"The new treatment, I don't know what it was about, but I think I'm doing great," Golatt says.
Even though he would really like to be back building houses, he admits, "I think I was one of the lucky ones." Just being able to walk alongside houses without his cane and with his best friend Marilynn is enough for now.
A small previous study showed NovoSeven led to better patient outcomes and reduced the number of deaths. If the current study also proves it's effective, it could become FDA approved for widespread use, much like how the drug TPA has become the gold standard for ischemic stroke patients with a clot.
NovoSeven is already an approved treatment for some hemophiliacs.
Source: ABCnews
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=health&id=4535073
Intracerebral hemorrhaging, or brain bleeding, is a scary type of stroke. It makes up 15 percent of all strokes, and there are no effective treatments for it. Ninety percent of patients are dead within a month if it's a large hemorrhage in a deep brain structure. But now, a new therapy seems to stop the bleeding in its tracks.
These houses are the fruits of Clifford Golatt Jr.'s labor. For more than 20 years, he worked as a brick mason. But he went from laying bricks to laying in a hospital bed after having a stroke five months ago.
"Just went dead all of sudden," Golatt says. "That's when I knew I was having a stroke, you know. I told them I was having a stroke, and they thought I was telling a fib, but I wasn't."
Clifford suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage, a type of stroke that's often fatal and has no effective treatments.
"It's about the most frustrating situation you can imagine," Christiana Hall, M.D., a neurologist at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, tells Ivanhoe.
Dr. Hall is one researcher from 100 sites worldwide studying the clotting drug NovoSeven. If it is given within the first few hours after a stroke, it seems to stop the hemorrhage in its tracks.
"The earlier we can get to patients with hemorrhage, the better opportunity they will have for recovery," Dr. Hall says.
Golatt's scan at the time of stroke and after showed the hemorrhage had hardly grown. He was part of the study and doesn't know yet if actually received NovoSeven or a placebo drug. But he was paralyzed on the right side of his body when he came into the hospital. Five days later, he was able to lift that side. And now he's walking!
"The new treatment, I don't know what it was about, but I think I'm doing great," Golatt says.
Even though he would really like to be back building houses, he admits, "I think I was one of the lucky ones." Just being able to walk alongside houses without his cane and with his best friend Marilynn is enough for now.
A small previous study showed NovoSeven led to better patient outcomes and reduced the number of deaths. If the current study also proves it's effective, it could become FDA approved for widespread use, much like how the drug TPA has become the gold standard for ischemic stroke patients with a clot.
NovoSeven is already an approved treatment for some hemophiliacs.
Source: ABCnews
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=health&id=4535073
// posted by Biopeo @ 11:04 AM 
