Article: Dean - Clotbusters Print E-mail UAB Explores Innovative Stroke Therapies

Dean's Stroke Musing

I wonder if this trial started in 2011 and the results: Clotbusters at UAB. -- Dean's Stroke Musing.

In 1947, as tension between Russia and the United States threatened to erupt into nuclear war, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists added a new element to its cover: a stylized clock face with the hands set at seven minutes to midnight. For the past 63 years, the clock’s minute hand has moved back and forth to reflect the imminence of nuclear holocaust.

In the world of stroke care, the countdown to doomsday begins as soon as the brain’s oxygen supply is disrupted, either through a blood clot (ischemic stroke—the cause of 80 percent of strokes) or by bursting blood vessels (hemorrhagic stroke, which accounts for the other 20 percent of cases). Stroke kills more people worldwide than any other disease. It is the third leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause of serious, long-term disability.

Left to right: Damon Patterson,
Andrei Alexandrov, and Anne
Alexandrov. Andrei Alexandrov is
leading a team of researchers and
clinicians testing innovative new
stroke therapies.

For years, the stroke clock was set at three hours. Patients receiving emergency treatment before that time stood a good chance of recovering significant function; after the three-hour window closed, there wasn’t much hope. But new advances in stroke treatment are steadily pushing open the treatment window and adding precious time back onto the clock. Neurologist Andrei Alexandrov, M.D., and his team at the UAB Comprehensive Stroke Research Center are contributing many of those breakthroughs, developing and testing revolutionary therapies that are effective several hours, days, and even weeks after stroke onset .....

See the full article Clotbusters Print E-mail UAB Explores Innovative Stroke Therapies at Deans' Stroke Musings.

Many other good articles as well in tPA at Deans' Stroke Musings.