Word: tpa
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Because Phillips arrived at the emergency room so soon after her stroke began, the doctors offered her an experimental treatment. They injected her with a drug called TPA, which dissolved the clot and quickly re-established normal blood flow to her brain. Phillips recovered so completely, in fact, that it seemed as if the stroke had never happened. She left the hospital after four days, her speech normal and any trace of paralysis gone...
Breakthrough is a term that is overused in reporting about medicine. But the latest advances in stroke treatment--of which TPA is only the most dramatic--surely qualify for that term. Because stroke kills 150,000 Americans each year and is a leading cause of permanent disability, even a moderately effective treatment would make a profound difference in the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of people and their families...
...results with TPA, or tissue plasminogen activator, have been nothing short of astonishing. The drug dissolves blood-vessel clots that block blood flow to the brain. "This is a particularly exciting time," says Dr. Mark Dyken, professor emeritus of neurology at Indiana University and the editor of the research journal Stroke. "In the past, most doctors thought of a stroke as the end, and that nothing could be done...
Even if patients can't be given TPA, it's important for them to get to the hospital--and, if possible, to a specialized stroke-treatment center--as fast as they can. Neurologists have developed several other treatments to minimize stroke damage. For example, many patients become dehydrated, which slows down blood flow to the brain. By giving these patients intravenous liquids, doctors can correct the balance in the blood and prevent further damage...
...stroke victims who are treated quickly enough, however, TPA can literally give them back their life. Four weeks ago, Dr. Virendra Bisla, 49, was in a hospital outside Chicago, making rounds, when he suddenly found himself leaning against the wall. "The nurses kept asking me if I was all right," the cardiologist recalls. But even though Bisla could understand everything they said, he couldn't respond. They wheeled him to the emergency room, where doctors determined that he was suffering a stroke. Soon after, they transferred him to the specialized stroke center at the University of Illinois, where...