Thrombolytic Drug Confirmed Safe in Stroke Care - CME Teaching Brief- MedPage Today
STOCKHOLM, Jan. 26 -- Activase (alteplase), the thrombolytic agent, appears as safe in real-world use for acute stroke as it was in the clinical trials that led regulators to okay it, according to a large European study.
Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that thrombolytic drugs like Activase break up clots that block blood flow to the brain during a stroke but must be given within 180 minutes after symptom onset to be effective.
* Point out to interested patients that this study appears to counter European concerns that more brain bleeding complications would ensue with Activase in clinical practice than in trials.
The adverse event of most concern -- symptomatic intercranial hemorrhage -- occurred at a similar rate in the post-marketing study as it did the pooled randomized trials (7.3% versus 8.6%), reported Nils Wahlgren, M.D., of the Karolinska Institutet here, and colleagues, in the Jan. 27 issue of The Lancet.
Posted by gruwell at January 29, 2007 04:55 AM | TrackBack