New blood, new hope
In a study on mice, neuroscientists led by Xuefang Ren from West Virginia University found that replacement blood transfusion saves the brain from ischemic damage. They were able to demonstrate that if you remove some of the blood from a subject who has had a stroke and replace it with the blood of a subject who has never had a stroke, there are practically no consequences of this stroke.
Most strokes are ischemic and occur due to acute cessation of blood supply to the brain.
Currently, the only FDA-approved treatment for ischemic stroke is tissue plasminogen activators (tPA), which dissolve a blood clot clogging an artery and restore blood flow. However, tPA is effective when administered within the first three hours after a stroke.
Ren's research shows that blood transfusion can be effective within the first six hours. Replacing less than 20% percent of the blood in the mice was enough to significantly reduce brain damage.
Down with the old, give the new!
The idea of the method is to change the immune response that occurs after a stroke.
The researchers explained that after a stroke, the patient's blood composition changes, causing disturbances in the work of the brain and the whole body. Neutrophils try to repair the damage and accumulate in the brain. At the same time, they excrete matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) in excess, an enzyme that increases the permeability of the blood-brain barrier. The broken integrity of the barrier allows cytokines and inflammatory cells contained in the blood to enter the brain, causing brain swelling and neuronal death.
The number of circulating neutrophils increases during the first few hours after the onset of stroke and is associated with the severity of the stroke, the volume of damage and deterioration of functional outcomes.
The study showed that replacement blood transfusion from a healthy donor reduces the concentration of inflammatory cells, reduces the number of neutrophils and MMP-9 after a stroke.
In other words, stroke is not just a vascular disorder. The immune system, trying to help, actually aggravates the damage. That is why, according to the researchers, replacing part of the patient's blood with the blood of a healthy donor can become an effective method of treating ischemic stroke and reduce mortality.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 795,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year and 140,000 of them die.
Article X.Ren et al. Blood substitution therapy rescues the brain of mice from ischemic damage published in the journal Nature Communications.
Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of WVU Today: New blood, new hope: Transfusions protect the brain from stroke damage, according to WVU neuroscience research.