Word: tpa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...hospital study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and known as TIMI II (for thrombolysis in myocardial infarction phase II trial), involved 3,262 patients who had suffered apparent heart attacks. Within four hours of their attacks, all patients received a powerful clot dissolver, known as TPA (tissue plasminogen activator), along with heparin and aspirin to inhibit blood coagulation. Of the 1,636 patients in the invasive-strategy group, 928 underwent angiography and angioplasty within 18 to 48 hours after their attacks...
...were initially afraid that this dose of TPA wouldn't do the job, because a clot that goes to the pulmonary arteries is much bigger [than one in the arteries of the heart,]" Goldhaber said...
...Although TPA has been tested in several thousand heart attack victims around the world, this study represents the first time it has been given to patients with lung clots, called pulmonary embolisms...
Although it worked effectively on most lung-clot victims, TPA also caused serious internal bleeding in six percent of the patients. Goldhaber said that more, larger-scale trials would be necessary before the Food and Drug Administration would consider approving the drug for widespread...
Another clot-dissolving drug, Urokinase, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for experimental use in pulmonary embolism victims in 1977, but TPA seems to work more effectively, Goldhaber said...