science
Drug Combination Cooled Stroke Patients’ Body Temperature but Did Not Reduce Brain Damage in Small Human Trial
A promethazine-chlorpromazine mix lowered core temperature by 0.3 °C in a 32-person trial. Researchers will test one-hour infusions next.
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Ady7847. The same drug combination reduced brain damage in both species and improved limb use in the treated monkeys. The drugs also suppressed glucose metabolism in brain cells of the treated animals.
Promethazine is a sedating antihistamine used for hay fever and sleep assistance, while chlorpromazine is an antipsychotic used for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Both have been known to reduce body temperature since the 1950s. Researchers next conducted a clinical trial that enrolled 32 people who had just experienced a stroke.
Participants received either the promethazine-chlorpromazine combination or placebo in addition to standard clot-removal therapy, with infusions administered over 12 hours. 5 °F). The treatment did not reduce stroke damage in the human trial.
Shuaili Xu at Capital Medical University in Beijing, who led the work, said the slow infusion rate may have produced a low blood drug concentration per unit of time. His team is now launching a follow-up trial to test faster one-hour infusions of the same drugs.
Kirsten Coupland of the University of Newcastle, Australia, who was not involved in the study, said the fact that the drugs are already used in humans for other indications makes further clinical trials reasonable.
