According to Nursing Times, researchers have made recent claims that lowering the temperature of the brain could help victims of stroke by preventing death or disability from occurring.
A group of these researchers are seeking to acquire funding for a trial in 21 countries in Europe, involving 80 hospitals. They hope to reach 1,500 patients.
Lowering the temperature of the brain puts it into a state of hibernation, causing it to require less oxygen. This reduces damage and gives doctors more time to deal with damaged blood vessels.
Currently, doctors use this same technique of putting the brain into hibernation for patients who have an elevated risk of brain damage, either due to cardiac health issues or due to birth defects.
Dr. Malcom Macleod of the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh notes that one European dies from a stroke every 90 seconds. Approximately double that amount of people will survive a stroke every day, but will be disabled.
Dr. Macleod also adds that medically induced “hypothermia might improve the outcome for more than 40,000 Europeans every year.”
Though the trial could be expensive, Dr. Stefan Schwab of the Friedrich-Alexander-University in Germany notes that the benefits of the trial would allow it to pay for itself within a year.
Dr. Schwab hopes that this trial will open the door for many additional trials and treatment options involving beneficial medically induced hypothermia, resulting in even more lives saved as the European population ages.
interesting stroke info