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Ancrod Effective for Acute Stroke Treatment

CHICAGO, IL -- May 9, 2000 --Patients with acute ischemic stroke treated with ancrod, an anticoagulation agent, had favorable neurological outcomes at 90 days after stroke, according to an article appearing in the May 10 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

David G. Sherman, M.D., from the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, and colleagues conducted the Stroke Treatment with Ancrod Trial (STAT), designed to investigate the efficacy and safety of ancrod in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Five hundred patients were studied from August 1993 to January 1998, with 252 randomly assigned to receive placebo and 248 assigned to receive ancrod as a continuous 72-hour intravenous infusion beginning within three hours of stroke onset, followed by ancrod infusions lasting approximately one hour at 96- and 120- hours. Ancrod is a purified fraction of venom from the Malaysian pit viper that induces rapid defibrinogenation, which affects blood coagulation.

To determine the efficacy of the treatment, researchers used a functional status scale that measured patients need for help in daily activities 90 days following the stroke. They found favorable functional status was achieved by more patients in the ancrod group (42.2 percent) than in the placebo group (34.4 percent). The percentages were adjusted for variables such as severity of stroke, age and sex.

Mortality was not different between treatment groups and the proportion of severely disabled patients was less in the ancrod group than in the placebo group (11.8 percent vs. 19.8 percent). However, there were more patients who developed intracranial hemorrhages in the ancrod group than in the placebo group.

According to the authors, ancrod has been used in Europe and Canada since the 1970s as reperfusion therapy for clinical conditions such as peripheral vascular disease, deep vein thrombosis, and central retinal venous thrombosis. At present, ancrod is being marketed only in Canada.
(JAMA. 2000;283:2395-2403)

Related Link: The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

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