New Surgical Procedure Could Help Hemorrhagic Stroke Patients
Research has shown that a new procedure to remove blood clots in brain tissue after a hemorrhagic stroke might reduce long-term disability.
The study group was made up of 96 patients in total at 26 different hospitals who suffered from a bleeding stroke. Phase II of the study focused on 31 patients who were given standard post stroke medical care and 25 patients who had the surgical procedure. 75% of the patients were men with an average age of 60.
From all the people who suffer from a hemorrhagic stroke, most are severely. The most common type of bleeding stroke is ICH. according to researchers, there has not been a specific treatment developed for ICH.
People that had been treated with surgery and recombinant tPA had a shorter hospital stay, were less likely to be in a care facility and had less disability during one year’s results from phase II of the study.
This now raises huge hope that we could have a treatment for the last form of stroke currently without a specific treatment.
The procedure involves a surgeon cutting a dime sized hole in the stroke patient’s skull. A catheter is then placed into the brain tissue which pushes through the longest part of the blood clot that formed during the stroke. Then, through the catheter, rtPA is directly applied to the blood clot every 8 hours over 3 days which liquefies the blood clot and is removed through the catheter.
The average volume of the patient group’s blood were 46 milliliters which is roughly the size of a golf ball. 57% of the clots were removed on average with the procedure, while only 5% percent naturally dissolved within the standard medical care group in the days following post stroke. Also the research team found less edema in the surgical group’s brains in comparison with the standard medical care group.
The newest findings showed that a year post stroke, the surgical group had 14% better body functionality. Also, the same length of time after the stroke, patients with mild disability showed the same improvement between the groups.
The time spent in hospital was on average 38 days shorter for patients who underwent the surgical procedure in comparison with the standard medical care group. This will save hospitals a considerable amount of resource.
The research team also stated that the procedure could help any hemorrhagic stroke patient as it had no limit on the size of the hemorrhage that occurred. All patients benefited equally from the procedure regardless of time of surgery post stroke or ethnicity. The research team have a future plan to carry out a further study of 500 patient’s at over 75 sites.