Brussels, 19/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 19 March, eminent European scientists announced that a new clinical trial would begin on a European scale, aimed at treating volunteer stroke (or CVA - cardiovascular/cerebrovascular accident) victims with mild hypothermia. EuroHYP-1, the phase III clinical trial which is exceptionally widespread, will be subsidised by the European Commission under the seventh framework programme and deployed in 25 European countries. The trial will be coordinated by a consortium formed by the Universitätsklinikum Erlangen and the European Stroke Research Network for Hypothermia (EuroHYP). “A project of this scale would not be possible without a pan-European approach - no one country or smaller group of member states has yet managed to organise a clinical trial of therapeutic cooling for stroke despite widespread acknowledgment that this is an important and promising therapy”, said Dr Malcolm Maclead, Lecturer and Head of Experimental Neuroscience at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Stroke is the second cause of death worldwide and the second cause of reduced life expectancy according to the DALY concept (Disability Adjusted Life Years - lost disability-adjusted life years), which corresponds to the number of years lost plus the number of years lived with a disability. Every day, 1,000 Europeans die of heart failure, i.e. one every 90 seconds, and about twice that number survive but remain disabled. Therapeutic hypothermia is currently already effectively used as a treatment to reduce ischaemic brain injury following cardiac arrest in adult patients or at birth, by induction of a kind of brain hibernation that reduces the need for oxygen and prevents additional damage. The aim of EuroHYP-1 is to recruit around 1,500 volunteer patients with acute ischaemic CVA, with special emphasis on those that do not currently have access to truly effective treatment or who respond very moderately to traditional treatment. The results of the experiment will be shared with other countries for whom the technique is new, and with the EU's neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Croatia and Norway, who will also take part in the trial. The method is highly promising with the added advantage that related costs are relatively low. (IL/transl.jl)