Chinese scientists report that the drug loberamisal can extend the period in which stroke damage can be limited from six hours to around 48 hours. Current emergency treatments, such as clot-busting drugs or surgery, must be given within six hours at most.
The study, published on 10 September in the Journal of the American Medical Association, comes from a large phase 3 trial involving nearly 1,000 patients from 32 hospitals. About 70% of patients who received the drug intravenously within two days of a stroke regained full functional independence.
That figure is 13 percentage points higher than with standard care alone. The result matters because brain cells begin dying within minutes of an artery being blocked, and nearly 12 million new stroke cases occur worldwide every year.
