2023-12-23 14:13:00
Research carried out in France on the clots responsible for certain strokes to improve the management of these accidents. The objective: to better understand the formation of clots to destroy them more effectively.
Farah Kesri
Written on 12/23/2023
Stroke: clots at the heart of research — Le Mag de la Santé – France 5
Olivier’s reading remains hesitant. For this actor, certain words are still obstacles. Barely three weeks ago, Olivier suffered a stroke at home.
Suddenly everything became confusing. “I had the telephone in my hand and it was exactly as if I had lived in the 15th century, and someone had said to me, this is called a telephone, deal with it. I was incapable to read something, to see something, I didn’t understand anything on the phone. No concept of dates, the first names of my wife, my children, my parents… nowhere to be found”confides Olivier Lambert, 61 years old.
Capturing the clot in the blocked artery
Olivier still manages to contact his wife. He was then quickly taken to hospital. Unfortunately, the clot responsible for his stroke is resistant to drug treatment. Olivier then has to undergo surgery.
“What a patient I am ischemic strokethat is to say that an artery in the brain has become blocked by a clot” explains it Professor Jean-Philippe Désilles, neurologist at theRothschild Foundation hospital. “We went up with vessels to be able to trap the clot and remove it from the body. We recovered all of the arteries that were initially blocked and the next day, he was again able to express himself and understand”he continues.
4,500 clots preserved for analysis
Although effective, this intervention is not the quickest solution. To find a better treatment, all the blood clots recovered during these interventions are the subject of a large study carried out at the Rothschild Foundation hospital: the Booster study.
Some 4,500 clots are stored in a biobank at -80°C before being analyzed. “We went to remove the clot in a patient’s artery. This one was a large artery, the carotid artery which was occluded and this one was one of its branches, that’s all small, but it’s enough to cause significant damage to the brain.”breathes Professor Désilles.
Against these clots, the current drug is only effective in 10% of cases. A team from the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) associated with the study seeks to better understand the reason for this resistance.
For this, each clot is prepared to be analyzed under a microscope. Thanks to specific coloring techniques, the clot reveals its secrets. In green the fibers which constitute the cement of the clot.
Identify resistance to treatments
“At the moment, the medicine we give aims to dissolve this green glue to break up the clot and thin the blood again” explains Dr Benoit Ho-Tin-Noé, Inserm research director at the Paris Faculty of Pharmacy. “One of the first things that was first noticed was that some clots are richer in white blood cells than others. The problem is that when we have large quantities of white blood cells, they will release something which will interfere with the action of the drug and block its action.deplores the researcher.
However, there is a medication capable of removing the blocking effect of white blood cells. In the laboratory, the combination of the two drugs made it possible to destroy resistant clots. This is a major discovery. A clinical trial has just started to test this new strategy in stroke patients.
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