(This is an excerpt of the Health Rounds newsletter, where we present latest medical studies on Tuesdays and Thursdays)<\/p>\n
By Nancy Lapid<\/p>\n
Dec 3 (Reuters) – Stroke patients who can’t get to the hospital quickly enough to be eligible for the usual clot-busting treatments may \u200bsoon have another option, results from a mid-stage trial suggest.<\/p>\n
Currently available thrombolytic drugs must be given within a few hours after \u200csymptoms begin. That narrow window can rule out patients who did not, or could not, seek help promptly because they didn\u2019t immediately recognize their symptoms, as well as those who wake \u200cup with symptoms of a stroke that may have started hours earlier.<\/p>\n
The experimental drug being developed by Silver Creek Pharmaceuticals and dubbed scp776 inhibits apoptosis, a process in which injured cells self-destruct.<\/p>\n
The drug keeps injured cells alive by delivering a hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1, or IGF-1, which activates the cells\u2019 natural repair pathways.<\/p>\n
In 119 patients who came to emergency departments on average about 12 hours after stroke onset – for whom there was no approved drug treatment – \u2060scp776 resulted in clinically meaningful improvements in outcomes compared \u200cto a placebo, researchers reported at the 2025 World Stroke Congress in Barcelona.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very promising to see a therapy that leverages the brain\u2019s own recovery mechanisms to improve stroke outcomes in the clinic,\u201d Silver Creek Chief Scientific Officer Kris \u200dKuchenbecker said in a statement.<\/p>\n
At the time of hospital discharge, or by day 7 after symptom onset, patients receiving scp776 had on average a clinically significant 2.26-point higher score on the 42-point NIH Stroke Scale compared to those who received a placebo, although the difference was just short of statistical significance.<\/p>\n
At 90 days, the treatment \u200bhad resulted in a 15% increase in the relative proportion of patients achieving functional independence, researchers reported.<\/p>\n
The drug has received FDA Fast Track designation \u200cfor acute ischemic strokes caused by blockages in the arteries that carry blood to the brain. The Food and Drug Administration awards the designation to speed development and review of treatments for serious conditions where there is an unmet need.<\/p>\n
\u201cScp776 harnesses the well-understood repair power of growth factors in a targeted way, finally delivering on the vast preclinical evidence of therapeutic benefit of IGF-1,\u201d Kuchenbecker said.<\/p>\n
AI IMPROVES SCREENING FOR FETAL HEART PROBLEMS<\/p>\n
Artificial intelligence software can improve fetal screening for congenital heart defects, according to results of a new study.<\/p>\n
Using a tool from medical company BrightHeart, researchers analyzed 200 fetal ultrasound \u2060scans obtained during the second trimester of pregnancy from women at 11 medical centers \u200bin two countries, including 100 with at least one suspicious finding.<\/p>\n
Seven obstetrician-gynecologists and seven doctors \u200bwho specialize in high-risk pregnancies reviewed each examination in randomized order, both with and without AI assistance, looking for findings that might indicate the presence of a severe heart defect.<\/p>\n
The physicians detected more suspicious lesions, and in less time, with \u200dAI than without, according to a report \u2060in Obstetrics & Gynecology.<\/p>\n
Overall, their detection rate rose from 82% to more than 97%, with an 18% reduction in reading time and 19% improvement in confidence scores.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur study should prompt and encourage future research into AI-assisted software’s ability to improve detection rates… (and) reduce the variability and \u2060inequity of detection of congenital heart defects globally,\u201d study co-leader Dr. Andrei Rebarber of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe future for prenatal diagnostic \u200cimaging is bright when AI software is employed as an adjunct to physician interpretation.\u201d<\/p>\n
(To receive the full newsletter in your inbox \u200cfor free sign up here)<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(This is an excerpt of the Health Rounds newsletter, where we present latest medical studies on Tuesdays and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[166852,166851,97,252,253,166850,5418,166849],"class_list":["post-328326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-approved-drug-treatment","tag-artificial-intelligence-software","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-silver-creek-pharmaceuticals","tag-stroke","tag-stroke-patients"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}