It is fascinating to see a medicine or a therapy that is used for one thing being applied in a completely different area. A good example is thalidomide, a drug that was introduced in 1957 to treat morning sickness. It was pulled from the market because it could cause terrible fetal malformations. Years later it was discovered that it could be very helpful in the treatment of multiple myeloma, leprosy and Behcet’s disease.
Now a new study has shown that people treated with the antibiotic minocycline within six to 24 hours after a stroke (cerebrovascular accident) had significantly fewer disabilities.
In the study 152 men and women received either an oral dose of minocycline or placebo for five days following stroke. People who received minocycline were treated on average within 13 hours of the onset of the stroke compared to 12 hours for the placebo group. Patients were followed up for three months.
People treated with minocycline had significantly better outcomes than those treated with placebo. By three months, the minocycline group performed four times better than the placebo group on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, which measures vision, facial palsy, movement, and speaking ability.
Minocycline appears to be neuroprotective and to prevent programmed cell death or apoptosis.
This could turn out to be very important because current stroke treatments only work during the first few hours after the onset of symptoms, and many people do not get to the hospital in time to be treated.
Comments