New medication helps preserve brain cells after stroke

When it comes to treatment for stroke, you want to see physicians who are on the leading edge of research and can support your neurological health after such a major health event. Physicians at Baptist Health have united with experts around the world to advance stroke care in a clinical study, focused on a new treatment that keeps brain cells alive even when a stroke blocks their blood flow.

The Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville is a certified Comprehensive Stroke Center, providing a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to the rapid diagnosis and treatment of stroke. Because of Baptist Health’s reputation for leading stroke care, specialists from Baptist partnered with the University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services — along with 48 other stroke centers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia — to test the newest stroke therapy, publishing the results of the study on February 20.

Baptist Health was part of the clinical trial that was presented at the International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles. The study involved 38 patients from Northeast Florida, and was designed to investigates the use of the neuroprotective drug nerinetide, developed by NoNO Inc. Enrollment first began in May 2017.

Following a stroke, participants were either given nerinetide along with the standard clot-busting drug, alteplase – or patients who couldn’t receive alteplase were given nerinetide by itself. This new drug protects the brain cells from dying when they’re deprived of blood by a clot, and images of patients’ brains from the study showed the expected damage from the stroke was reduced when the patient received nerinetide and then had the clot removed.

Eric Sauvageau, MD, neurosurgeon and co-medical director of the Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville, was a principal investigator on the study. Subinvestigators from Baptist Health’s team of specialists included Ricardo Hanel, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon and co-medical director of the Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center, and Nima Aghaebrahim, MD, board-certified interventional neurologist.

“Further studies are ongoing to help define the role of the medication and its uses in other scenarios,” said Dr. Sauvageau. “This is a promising category of medication that protects the brain and has potential to decrease the amount of life-long disability causes by stroke.”

To learn more about advanced diagnostics and treatments for strokes, brain aneurysms and other cerebrovascular conditions, visit Baptist Stroke & Cerebrovascular Center.