A new treatment for stroke victims

A device that works like a tiny vacuum may help some stroke victims. The Penumbra device, approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration last month, suctions clots out of the arteries of stroke victims. It could prevent brain damage in some patients who don't get treatment with the intravenous clot-busting drug TPA in time, The Associated Press reports. In a study of 125 patients, which will be presented at the February meeting of the American Stroke Association, Penumbra had few side effects and offered significant recovery benefits to 42 patients on whom it was used. But not all patients are good candidates, the AP quotes other experts as saying. The rush of blood to oxygen-deprived brain tissue can lead to potentially fatal swelling or hemorrhages. The U.S. National Institutes of Health is now funding a study involving 900 patients that will compare standard therapy with various inside-the-artery treatments, possibly including Penumbra.

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Fixing Bulging Arteries: A less invasive procedure to repair bulging abdominal arteries may be better for older patients. A Harvard study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that inserting a fabric sleeve into the artery, rather than traditional surgery to implant the arterial patch, led to fewer deaths among older patients. The study involved more than 45,000 Medicare patients, age 76 on average, who had abdominal aortic aneurysms. Nearly 5% of the patients who got traditional surgery died, versus only 1% of those who got the less invasive treatment. After four years, those in the non-invasive group were three times more likely to have an arterial rupture than the other patients, but this risk was offset by the other complications among people who got more invasive surgery, The Associated Press reports.

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Preventing CP in Preemies: Giving mothers a simple compound of magnesium sulfate intravenously before birth can decrease the risk of cerebral palsy in preemies. A study presented at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine meeting in Dallas this week suggests that there is a potential benefit to infuse intravenous magnesium sulfate in women delivering extremely premature babies. The study involved over 2,200 women who went into early labor at 24 to 31 weeks of pregnancy. The women were given either IV magnesium sulfate or a sterile placebo solution. The babies were checked for cerebral palsy at birth and over the next two years. Among the babies who survived, the researchers found moderate or severe cerebral palsy in about 2% of those whose mothers got treatment, compared to about 4% of those whose mothers got the dummy solution. The number of deaths was the same in both groups. The researchers could not say why magnesium sulfate works to prevent CP, but they theorize that it opens up blood vessels in newborns' brains. The compound is already widely used to treat pregnancy-related high blood pressure and stop preterm labor, The Associated Press reports.

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Needle-Free Flu Vaccine: An experimental vaccine may one day protect children from the flu without using needles. A Korean study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that two doses of a liquid vaccine placed under the tongue offered protection against flu in mice. Placing the vaccine directly on mucus membranes prompted a response in both mucus tissues and the immune system, the researchers said. The researchers now are studying whether it will have the same benefit in humans, The Associated Press reports.

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