According to a Scottish research, the cheap inflatable leg wraps may save the lives of patients after a stroke.
The devices regularly squeeze the legs to keep blood flowing and prevent formation of fatal blood clots.
A trial with 2,876 patients, published in the Lancet, showed there were fewer clots with the wraps.
The UK’s Stroke Association said the results were “extremely encouraging” and had the potential to save thousands of lives.
A clot in the leg, a deep vein thrombosis, is normally associated with long flights, but is a problem for hospital patients unable to move.
Doctors at Western General Hospital and the University of Edinburgh said compression socks did not improve survival and clot-busting drugs led to other problems, including bleeding on the brain.
They tested the devices, which fit around the legs and fill with air every minute. They compress the legs and force the blood back to the heart.
They were worn for a month or until the patient recovered and was able to move again.
In the study, 8.5% of patients using the compression device developed blood clots, compared with 12.1% of patients who were treated normally.
According to a Scottish research, the cheap inflatable leg wraps may save the lives of patients after a stroke
Prof. Martin Dennis said: “At last we have a simple, safe and affordable treatment that reduces the risk of deep vein thrombosis and even appears to reduce the risk of dying after a stroke.
“We estimate that this treatment could potentially help about 60,000 stroke patients each year in the UK.
“If this number were treated, we would prevent about 3,000 developing a deep vein thrombosis and perhaps save 1,500 lives.”
He said the system should also be tested in other immobile patients, such as those with pneumonia.
Prof. Tony Rudd, who chairs the Intercollegiate Stroke Guideline Group at the Royal College of Physicians, said: “This study is a major breakthrough showing how a simple and safe treatment can save lives.
“It is one of the most important research studies to emerge from the field of stroke in recent years.”
Dr. Dale Webb, of the Stroke Association charity, said: “The results of this research are extremely encouraging and show that using a compression device on the legs of patients at risk of developing blood clots could be a more effective treatment.
“This new device has the potential to save thousands of lives and we would like to see it incorporated into national clinical guidelines.”
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According to doctors in the US and Canada, it may be possible to use a drug to prevent some of the lasting and crippling damage caused by a stroke.
A safety trial, published in the Lancet Neurology medical journal, suggested the chemical NA-1 was safe to use.
The study on 185 people also hinted that patients given the drug developed fewer regions of damaged brain tissue.
The Stroke Association said that it was promising, but needed more research.
Tests in primates had suggested NA-1 prevented brain cells dying when a stroke starved them of oxygen.
A small trial was set up at 14 hospitals in the US and Canada.
Patients who took part were having an operation to repair a brain aneurysm, a weakened blood vessel which could rupture, are at increased risk of a stroke.
Ninety-two people had the drug injected into a vein, while another 93 were injected with salty water.
The doctors concluded that NA-1 was safe, with only two patients having mild side effects.
However, brain scans also showed that fewer brain lesions, damaged areas of tissue, formed in patients given the drug.
The doctors involved said the study provided evidence that “neuroprotection is achievable” but said that “a larger trial is necessary to investigate the robustness of the effect”.
Prof. Markku Kaste, from Helsinki University Central Hospital, said: “Age is the greatest risk factor for stroke. Because of the global population ageing, the number and burden of strokes will increase.”
He said previous trials to use drugs to protect the brain had resulted in failure. His said this drug still need to be assessed in much larger clinical trials before its effectiveness was known.
The trial was funded by the biopharmaceutical companies NoNO and Arbor Vita.
According to two studies, using small nets to extract blood clots from patients’ brains may be the future of stroke care.
Clots block blood vessels, starving parts of the brain of oxygen, which leads to symptoms such as paralysis and loss of speech.
Two studies, presented in the Lancet medical journal, suggest extracting clots with nets could improve recovery.
The Stroke Association said it was very excited by the treatment’s potential.
There are already techniques for reopening blocked blood vessels in people’s brains.
Some patients will be given “clot-busting” drugs, but this needs to be in the hours just after the stroke and is not suitable for everyone.
Other techniques have been developed to extract the clot. Some procedures pass a tube up through the groin to the brain. There the wire passes through the clot, forming a coil on the far side and then pulling the clot out. However, this is far from routine practice.
Clots block blood vessels, starving parts of the brain of oxygen, which leads to symptoms such as paralysis and loss of speech
The latest methods involve a tiny wire cage instead of a coil. This pushes the clot up against the walls of the artery and enmeshes the clot in the wires, allowing doctors to pull the clot back out of the groin.
Two similar devices were compared with the current coil methods. One trial of 113 patients showed 58% had good brain function after three months, compared with 33% of those treated with the coil method, as well as a lower death rate.
Another study in 178 patients showed almost double the chance of living independently after treatment.
One of the researchers involved, Prof. Jeffrey Saver from the University of California, Los Angeles, said these techniques would become more common, as they are more likely to clear clots than drugs.
“Clot-busting drugs only partially reopen 40% of large blocked arteries. These devices partially reopen 70-90% of large blocked arteries.
“Second, these devices can be used in patients in whom it is not safe to give ‘clot busting’ drugs, such as patients taking anticoagulant medications, patients who had recent surgery, and patients who are between 4.5 to eight hours after stroke onset.”
In the long term he can see drugs being used as a first option and then clot removal if the drugs fail or cannot be used.
Responding to the research, the Stoke Association’s Dr. Clare Walton said clot-busters did not work for all patients so new techniques could help many patients.
She added: “Clot retrieval devices have the potential to be used with more stroke patients and are better at removing blood clots than clot-busting drugs.
“We are very excited about this potential new treatment and look forward to further developments.”
Dr. Philip Gorelick, from Michigan State University, said the studies were “major steps forward in the successful treatment of acute ischaemic stroke, and pave the way for new treatment options”.
The research was published to coincide with a European Society of Cardiology meeting in Munich.
