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Bleeding Strokes Treated Aggressively In Study

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The Associated Press

Published: February 23, 2008

NEW ORLEANS - Aggressively lowering blood pressure in the early hours of a bleeding stroke can limit its severity, a preliminary study found, giving hope of a major advance in treating this often fatal problem.

These strokes happen when a vessel in the head bursts or leaks, flooding brain tissue with blood and damaging areas that control walking, talking and other functions. More than 100,000 such strokes occur yearly in the United States - a million worldwide - and half are fatal. The study was reported Friday at the International Stroke Conference.

Doctors know high blood pressure raises risk of such strokes, but it wasn't known whether it's safe to rapidly lower it right after one.

The study tested this in 404 stroke patients in Asia and Australia. Half were given usual care - intravenous drugs to lower systolic blood pressure to 180; the rest had their blood pressure lowered to 140. Normal is 120.

Additional bleeding was about one-third less in the more aggressively treated patients, and there were no major side effects, said Craig Anderson of the University of Sydney in Australia, who led the research. The finding needs to be confirmed in a larger study.

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