Studies of stroke in animals have identified a host of other agents that, when administered in a timely fashion, are capable of reducing infarct size by as much as 50%.

A number of these drugs, most notably agents that block the cytotoxic effects of glutamate on cortical neurons, and agents that blunt the destructive effects of free radicals generated in the ischemic process, have been tried in large, prospective, randomized studies of patients.

Unfortunately, the great promise of animal research has not yet been fulfilled in these studies and rTPA remains the only drug of demonstrated efficacy in the very early hours of stroke.

Copyright 2000