alteplase - ischaemic strokes

Calls for the Approval of Increasing the Time Window for Administering Stroke Drug

There are calls for the drug Alteplase to be approved for use during a longer window of time after a patient has had a stroke.

Activase ® (Alteplase) is used to treat people that have had strokes as well as suffering from unstable angina, pulmonary embolisms, pulmonary thrombosis and acute myocardial infractions. The drug dissolves blood clots. It is created using recumbent DNA technology based on an a naturally occurring enzyme that body produces in very small amounts.

Currently the drug can only be administered to ischaemic stroke patients up to three hours after they have had a stroke. This is because it was believed that the risk of giving this drug after three hours vastly outweighed the benefits. The reason for this is that it can cause significant even fatal bleeding.

Scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have recently completed a study of 23,942 patients and they found that patients who suffered from ischaemic strokes could benefit from the use of the drug up to four and a half hours after the event. They caution that beyond this the risks may well outweigh the benefits. They also say that intervention as early as possible after the event is the most beneficial.

Dr. Roger Bonomo, Director of Stroke Care, Lenox Hill – New York City said,

“We’re still targeting to treat as early as you can because that gets the best results, but this gets people included in the treatment group who otherwise would have been excluded just because it was 3 hours and 1 minute or 3 hours and 10 minutes after the stroke.”

It is hoped that regulators will now approve this increase so that patients can continue to be treated up to this new limit. Read the full article here

Further Resources:

Article in the Lancet

Alteplase Information

Alteplase Website

Blogs:

MedWire News – Stroke – SITS-ISTR supports thrombolysis window ..