U.S. and Swedish researchers said found that a highly effective leukemia pill could reduce complications and help stroke patients benefit from it as well.
The Sstudies have shownshowed that a drug by Novartis AG, Gleevec or imatinib significantly reduced bleeding in the brain caused by tPA, the most effective emergency treatment for the most common type of stroke, and extended the time tPA could be used safely.
"You potentially could reduce the amount of side effects associated with tPA and increase the population that could receive it," said Daniel Lawrence of the University of Michigan Medical School.
According to the World Health Organization, out of the 15 million strokes that occur every year, 80 % are triggered when a blood clot impedes blood flow to the brain. For the last decade these are treated with tPA , which can reduce the clot and the chances of death or disability, but it can cause blood to leak into the brain.
Lawrence and a team of researchers from the Ludwig Institute at Karolinska InstitutetInstitute in Stockholm, Sweden, found the effectiveness the leukemia drug imatinib had on mice in controlling the extent of the blood leakage when they had the drug tPA in combination as compared to on its own. (the line doesn't convey clear meaning)
"Together with our clinical colleagues at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm we are now rapidly continuing to explore this exciting possibility in clinical trials involving stroke patients," study leader Ulf Eriksson of the Karolinska Institute. Their findings are published online in Nature Medicine.