New brain 'injection' treatment gives hope to 20,000 stroke sufferers

Groundbreaking new treatment dissolves 'golf ball-sized' clots Patients who use drugs had less disability a year later, study says Clots removed in 50 per cent of patients given medication, compared to just 5 per cent receiving standard care

By Jenny Hope

PUBLISHED: 20:26 EST, 7 February 2013 | UPDATED: 02:58 EST, 8 February 2013

Groundbreaking: New treatment which sees drugs inserted in the brain of stroke victims could help thousands who suffer a brain haemorrhage (file picture

Surgeons are inserting drugs in the brain of stroke victims to dissolve golf ball-sized clots in a groundbreaking new treatment.

The technique could help thousands of patients who suffer a bleeding stroke, or brain haemorrhage, for which there is currently no surgical treatment.

A study shows that clots were removed in 50 per cent of patients given medication directly into the brain, compared with just 5 per cent of patients receiving standard care.

Patients having surgery using clot-buster drugs had significantly less disability a year later, according to research presented at the American Stroke Associations annual conference.

Bleeding strokes in the brain affect one in seven stroke victims in the UK about 20,000 a year and occur when a weakened blood vessel in the brain ruptures and leaks blood into surrounding brain tissue, often causing permanent damage and disability.

Daniel Hanley, study leader and professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, said: There is now real hope we have a treatment for the last form of stroke that doesnt have a treatment brain haemorrhage.

See the original post here:
New brain 'injection' treatment gives hope to 20,000 stroke sufferers