Dr. Dorothea Altschul and her clinical research team at St Joseph’s Regional Medical Center have successfully enrolled their first stroke patient in the multi-center DIAS-4 trial.
Centered in nearly 100 sites around the United States and internationally, this trial aims to study the effectiveness and safety of the drug Desmoteplase for the treatment of patients suffering an acute ischemic stroke. An ischemic stroke is one caused by a blood clot that disrupts blood flow in the brain.
According to Dr. Altschul,“Desmoteplase, a chemical found in the saliva of vampire bats, has the effect of catalyzing the conversion of plasminogen to plasmin, which is the enzyme responsible for breaking down fibrin blood clots.” In other words, this new drug can potentially dissolve the stroke-causing blood clot and mitigate damage to the brain.
Currently, the only drug approved by the FDA to break up these kinds of clots is TPA (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator) and it has to be given within three hours of symptom onset. Unfortunately, not everyone makes it to the hospital within this time frame. The new drug, Desmoteplase, has a later and larger window of treatment, at 3-9 hours, which could greatly improve the quality of life as well as the survival rate for many more patients.
Dr. Altschul and her team enrolled their first patient, a 62 year old male, into the trial this October. The patient came into the hospital more than three hours after his symptoms started and was therefore not eligible for the standard drug treatment.
