By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Chief Medical Writer
For the first time in several decades, a new treatment has been shown to limit the damage from a common type of stroke. Researchers in the Netherlands found that mechanically removing a clot in addition to using a clot-busting medicine lowered the risk that a stroke sufferer would end up severely disabled.
Most strokes are caused by a clot in a blood vessel supplying the brain. Clot-dissolving medicine must be given within four and a half hours after symptoms start, and very few stroke patients seek help in time.
In the study, one third of people treated with the medicine plus a clot-removing device were free of major disability versus one-fifth of those given the clot medicine alone.
Results were published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.