Extra oxygen may help stroke patients

For some patients suffering a sudden Stroke , extra oxygen therapy improves their clinical symptoms deficits and brain abnormalities seen on an MRI a small, pilot study suggests

The study was performed with "a carefully selected group of patients," lead investigator Dr. Aneesh B. Singhal of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, told Reuters Health. "Our results, though preliminary, raise the exciting possibility that stroke patients...may benefit simply by breathing large amounts of oxygen as soon as possible after symptom onset."

Singhal and colleagues randomly assigned 16 patients who had started to have a stroke less than 10 hours beforehand to 8 hours of treatment with high-flow oxygen delivered via facemask, or to normal room air.

Stroke severity scores were similar in both groups to begin with, but tended to improve with oxygen therapy after 4 hours, and improved significantly after 24 hours in oxygen-treated patients," the researchers report in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke.

The average amount of brain damage visible on an MRI was significantly reduced after 4 hours in the oxygenated patients, and blood flow within the affected brain regions improved.

"Our research also suggests that oxygen therapy may be a practical means of extending the narrow - 3-hour - time window for administering the clot-busting drug TPA, which is the only (US) FDA-approved acute stroke treatment," Singhal added.

SOURCE: Stroke, April 2005.