A Drug To stop someone from bleeding to death

firetender

Community Leader Emeritus
2,552
12
38
This is the first trial of many, hopefully, before everybody and their mother gets it sold to them by the drug companies;

"Afraid of bleeding to death? Ask your Doctor about tranexamic acid. And remember, when you had one too many Viagra, 'Tranexamic Tames!' by re-directing the flow back to the vital organs. Keep a supply on hand for the whole family!"
 

jjesusfreak01

Forum Deputy Chief
1,344
2
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How many trials do you need for something like this. 20,000 patients in 40 countries sounds like a pretty comprehensive trial at least concerning its use in trauma. Sure, it may need more tests for other uses, but as long as the trial methodology is good, sounds like it's ready to roll.
 

Smash

Forum Asst. Chief
997
3
18
This is the first trial of many, hopefully, before everybody and their mother gets it sold to them by the drug companies;

"Afraid of bleeding to death? Ask your Doctor about tranexamic acid. And remember, when you had one too many Viagra, 'Tranexamic Tames!' by re-directing the flow back to the vital organs. Keep a supply on hand for the whole family!"

One of the exciting things about the prospects of tranxemic acid being effective in reducing mortality from haemorrhage is the fact that it is extremely cheap. There have been other studies with a similar concept (CONTROL study is one I think) but unlike the CRASH2 study they were utilizing expensive products like NovoSeven (factor VIIa). They were also small and not as rigorously designed as the CRASH2 study. The cost of the drug is important when one considers the already enormous burden that trauma places on health systems, particularly poor or developing nations health systems where trauma is often over-represented anyway.

The interesting thing about tranxemic acid is that the two study groups had essentially the same requirements for transfusion, but the tranxemic acid group had lower mortality. It has been suggested that this may have something to do with inhibiting plasmin and the effect that this has on a wide range of anti-inflammatory effects this has (plasmin being pro-inflammatory)

Interesting study, will be exciting to see where this goes.
 

Meursault

Organic Mechanic
759
35
28
I'm almost amazed by the reported lack of a significant increase in "vascular occlusive events", and in fact, a fairly-close-to-significant small decrease in risk (RR 0.68-1.02 p=0.085).

It sounds fairly impressive. The one concern I have is that they didn't follow up on patients after discharge. An increase in the risk of DVTs etc. after discharge should be caught somewhere in or shortly after the approval process, though.
 
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