Doctors like to say “time equals brain” when it comes to treating strokes.
And, a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds paramedics may be able to administer drug treatment as soon as they suspect a patient has suffered a stroke ““ meaning stroke patients could get critical treatment faster, leading to better brain function as they head into recovery.
Faster treatment means better results
“This study shows that it is possible to get treatments to stroke patients even before they arrive at a hospital. Because a blocked blood vessel causes brain damage over minutes to hours, this pre-hospital approach to treatment is sure to be adopted and refined in future clinical research studies. Ultra-early brain salvage in stroke patients will someday surely reduce the tremendous burden of disability and death due to stroke,” said Dr. Walter Koroshetz, M.D., acting director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke, an agency of the National Institutes of Health, in a statement released by the institute. NINDS funded the research, which was overseen by Dr. Jeffrey Saver, director of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Comprehensive Stroke Center.
Stroke is the fifth-leading cause of death in the U.S., but a leading cause of long-term disability. About 795,000 Americans suffer a stroke every year, and more than 137,000 die from it.
Surprising results
The study was originally designed to test the effectiveness of magnesium sulfate in protecting the brain from damaged caused by blocked blood vessels. Under the study, dubbed FASTMAG, paramedics either administered the drug or a placebo to patients suspected of having suffered a stroke. Paramedics participating in the study used a special stroke screening tool to assess the patient and consulted with a neurologist by phone.
Researchers found that though the drug wasn’t effective, the paramedics were.
This study indicated that patients were able to receive a study drug faster than in other stroke trials. Analysis revealed that 74.3 percent of patients received a study intervention within 60 minutes of stroke onset.
“The most important finding of this study was that medication could be delivered within the ‘golden hour’ of first onset of stroke symptoms when there is the greatest amount of brain to save. That means the prehospital paramedic delivery of drug system that was developed in FASTMAG could become a platform for testing additional drugs and devices in the future,” said Saver, lead author of the study, in an NINDS press release.
The magnesium sulfate wasn’t any better at reducing brain damage than the placebo. But now that doctors can show that paramedics can effectively deliver ultra-early treatment for stroke, there are plenty of other promising treatments to test, Saver said.
