£4m trial to save lives of stroke patients

A £4m trial will establish whether routinely treating stoke patients with paracetamol and antibiotics could save up to 25,000 lives each year.

Researchers claim that these drugs could prevent complications such as fever and infection in patients who have recently suffered a stroke. Up to half of stroke patients are said to suffer high temperatures and a third contract infections that increase risk of disability and death.

Led by the University of Utrecht and funded by the Horizon 2020 programme, the study will involve around 4,000 patients from across Europe and will test whether receiving these drugs immediately after a stroke reduces the risk of these complications. The aged-66 and over patients will be divided into preventative treatment and standard care groups. Those in the preventative treatment group will receive paracetamol to prevent high temperatures and antibiotics to combat infection in the first four days of hospitalisation.

Prof Malcolm Macleod from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, who is leading the study in the UK, said: “We have made great progress in treating stroke, but it still remains a major cause of death and disability.

“This new trial aims to understand how to use existing treatments most effectively and has the potential to reduce risk of death or disability for as many as 25,000 people each year, at very low costs.”