NoBlood

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

03-07-2005

Drug for hemophiliacs may help stroke victims
Edition: St. Charles
Section: Health & Fitness
Memo: HEALTH NOTES

A drug that keeps hemophiliacs from bleeding may prove to be the first treatment for the most lethal type of stroke, the kind caused by a burst blood vessel in the brain.

In a study, stroke victims given the clot-forming drug NovoSeven were one-third less likely to die and three times more likely to survive without severe disability.
"What was really startling was how well this drug worked," said Dr. Stephan Mayer, a stroke specialist at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York who led the study.

The drug needs more study, Mayer said, before it can be approved for this use.

Most strokes are caused by a clot that cuts off the flow of blood to the brain, and the clot-busting drug TPA has proved very effective for these patients. But there has been no effective treatment for the strokes caused by bleeding in the brain. More than half of victims die within a year, and only one in five recovers well enough to regain mobility.