New stroke treatments becoming a reality
28 Jul 2012
Scientists led by the president of The University of Manchester have demonstrated a drug which can dramatically limit the amount of brain damage in stroke patients.
Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell, Professor Stuart Allan and their team have spent the last 20 years investigating how to reduce damage to the brain following a stroke.
They have been testing the effectiveness of the drug Anakinra (IL-1Ra), which is already used for rheumatoid arthritis in experimental studies of stroke.
This new study builds on previous research, although the big difference is that rats with stroke risk factors such as obesity, insulin resistance and atherosclerosis were used alongside healthy rats and older ones.
It means the findings have a far greater chance of being replicated in human stroke patients.
The animals were randomised for all the experiments, assessments were performed in a blinded manner and analysis was confirmed by two independent researchers.
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