Press Release: Embargoed until 00.01 am British Summer Time on Tuesday 15th June 2010
Simple Injection Could Save the Lives of Thousands of Accident Victims Worldwide
If recently injured patients with serious bleeding were to receive a cheap, widely available and easily administered drug to help their blood to clot, tens of thousands of lives could be saved every year, according to a paper published on-line on Tuesday 15 June by the medical journal, The Lancet.
The results of the international CRASH-2 trial, show that early administration of tranexamic acid (TXA) to patients with recent, severe bleeding injuries saves lives, with no evidence of adverse effects from unwanted clotting.
The CRASH-2 trial was a large, randomised trial involving over 20,000 adult patients in 274 hospitals across 40 countries. It is the first trial of TXA in injured patients, although smaller trials have shown that it reduces bleeding in surgical patients.
Dr Pratyush Chaudhuri from Parkar Hospital was actively involved in the research and recruited 102 during the four years of trial recruitment.
The drug helps by reducing clot breakdown. Although this would be advantageous in patients with severe bleeding, doctors were worried that TXA might increase the risk of complications, such as heart attacks, strokes and clots in the lungs. The results of this trial show that TXA reduces death from bleeding without any increase in these complications.
Severely injured adults were enrolled in the trial if they had significant bleeding, or were at risk of significant bleeding and were within a few hours of injury. The researchers studied the numbers of deaths in hospital within four weeks of injury in the group and found that TXA reduced the chances of death due to massive blood loss by about one sixth.
The researchers estimate that administering TXA soon after injury could prevent up to 100,000 deaths per year across the world. “In India this treatment could prevent 12865 deaths, which amounts to about 18% of deaths due to severe haemorrhage, each year said Dr Pratyush Chaudhuri
Dr Pratyush Chaudhuri said about the results “this study provides us a simple and affordable tool , particularly relevant for developing countries where emergency services for trauma is rarely available in time]”
Contact:
To interview Dr. Pratyush Chaudhuri, contact 9226711139 , pratyushchaudhuri@email.com, www.drpratyush.hpage.com, www.thinkoblique.blogspot.com
