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W A S H
I N G T O N, Feb. 6 —
Researchers say an experimental stroke drug based on snake venom helped
prevent the brain damage that can incapacitate stroke victims.
The drug, called ANCROD, helped 42 percent
of stroke patients recover their physical and mental abilities, if given
within three hours of the attack. Only 34 percent of stroke patients given
a placebo recovered.
Dr. David Sherman and colleagues at the
University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio said they tested
the drug, based on the venom of a pit viper, on 500 patients.
Harder to Use, but More Control
They told a meeting of the American Heart Association in Nashville on
Friday that the drug is meant to be given quickly after a patient suffers
an ischemic stroke, which is caused by a blood clot.
Only one drug is currently approved for this
purpose, Genentech’s clotbuster Activase, which is also known as tissue
plasminogen activator or “tPA.”
Unlike tPA, which is given in a single, hour-long
infusion, ANCROD is given intravenously over three to five days. It lowers
the level of fibrinogen in the blood, which is necessary for clotting.
Sherman noted ANCROD is more difficult to use
than tPA, but gives the doctor more control. “We think that it’s going
to turn out to be safer than tPA in terms of the risk of bleeding,” he
said in a statement.
ANCROD, made by Knoll Pharmaceuticals, was
developed after researchers noted that blood failed to clot in people
bitten by pit vipers.
Other heart drugs are also based on snake venom,
notably Merck’s Aggrastat and COR Therapeutics’ Integrilin.
Earlier at the meeting, Abbott Laboratories said
its experimental new clot-busting drug, recombinant pro-urokinase, can be
used even later than the three-hour window for tPA and ANCROD.
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