The wonder drug (From This Is Cheshire)

The wonder drug

4:06pm Tuesday 20th May 2008

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A PIONEERING miracle' treatment to reduce the debilitating effects of a stroke is being piloted at Warrington Hospital.

Strokes, which affect one in four men in the UK, occur when the blood supply to part of the brain is disrupted and can cause paralysis, communication problems, severe memory loss and even death.

But an anti-blood-clotting drug, commonly used to treat heart attack patients, has been found to dramatically reverse side-effects if administered within three hours of the onset of symptoms.

Stephen Boyle, a 56-year-old traffic clerk from Grasmere Avenue, Orford, is the first patient in Warrington to receive the new treatment. He was admitted to hospital on May 2 after his manager recognised he was having a stroke.

Mr Boyle said: "I couldn't talk properly and felt a bit dizzy. I couldn't move my left arm or left leg so my boss called the ambulance. The whole of my left side was paralysed."

Two weeks after the stroke he was ready to go home. He said: "I've been told it would have taken me 12 weeks to get to the stage I'm at now if I hadn't had the drug. I'm still a little bit weak but have 95 per cent of my functions back."

Dr Graham Barton, leading the pilot at Warrington Hospital, said the Alteplase' drug is a miracle. It is given initially as an injection with the remainder as an hour-long infusion.

He said: "Mr Boyle had no movement on his left side and within 20 minutes of receiving the drug he was moving his arm.

"The sooner patients receive the treatment the better the result, so anyone experiencing any loss of function in the FAST test (see right) must act urgently."

But the treatment is not suitable for all, says Dr Barton: "Because this is only a pilot, the treatment is currently only available between 9am to 5pm on weekdays as logistically there are only three senior doctors who are giving this medication. The challenge is to see how we can make it available 24/7.

"Also, it is not a panacea for all. Potentially, if you treat 100 patients around 33 will improve significantly, 64 will stay about the same and three per cent will have a bleed because the medication thins the blood and that can be devastating."

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