A new brain bleed protocol could save your life someday

Your life could be one of the tens of thousands that will soon be saved by research from a study that revealed how doctors can drastically improve the odds of surviving a type of brain hemorrhage that more often than not leads to death or permanent disability. 

Intracranial hemorrhage is the second most likely cause of stroke in people and it's the most deadly form of the health condition with between 15% and 30% being killed by the disorder according to data from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. 

Strokes caused by an intracranial hemorrhage are dangerous because when the blood carried to the brain bursts out of its arteries it creates pressure that damages the brain. 

Blood in the brain can damage its tissue and excess amounts can increase the pressure in one’s skull and lead to further brain damage that leaves some people permanently disabled. 

“The damage done by increased brain pressure over a long period may be irreversible,” the American Association of Neurological Surgeons wrote in a post on its website. 

Treating intracranial hemorrhage has proven to be difficult for modern medicine since there haven’t been any real remedies beyond stopping a bleed and clotting its source.

However, everything changed after the Georgia Institute of Global Health announced promising data on a new medical protocol from Phase III of the organization's INTERACT3 study.

The results of the study were published in The Lancet and also announced during the European Stroke Organization Conference in Germany, where researchers showed for the first time that physicians now had a reliable treatment for intracranial hemorrhage.

The treatment has been dubbed Care Bundle and it focuses on controlling a patient's high blood pressure as well as implementing “strict glucose control, fever treatment, and rapid reversal of abnormal anticoagulation” according to a press release on the study. 

Controlling all the variables in a patient resulted in improved recovery times and led to a better quality of life for the individual with researchers predicting that the treatment was able to prevent the death of one patient out of every thirty-five treated with Care Bundle. 

One in thirty-five may not sound like a lot but when physicians are dealing with a health condition that has never had a proper treatment protocol, one in thirty-five can result in tens of thousands of saved lives according to the INTERACT3 study’s senior author. 

“Time is critical when treating this type of stroke,” said Professor Craig Anderson, the Director of Global Brian Health at The George Institute and the study’s lead author.

Anderson explained that he and his fellow researchers tested a variety of interventions to stabilize a patients’ condition according to a statement he made in his press release.

“We estimate that if this protocol was universally adopted,” Anderson said, “it could save tens of thousands of lives each year around the world,” a remarkable feat if true since there were little to no treatments for patients suffering from intracranial hemorrhage.

Roughly 7000 patients were enrolled in the study across 144 hospitals in ten countries, nine of which were middle-income nations with only one being a high-income country according to the press release. 

 “A lack of proven treatments for ICH has led to a pessimistic view that not much can be done for these patients,” joint lead author and Head of the Stroke Program at The George Institute China Lili Song said according to the press release on the study. 

“However, with INTERACT3, we demonstrate on a large scale how readily available treatments can be used to improve outcomes in resource-limited settings. We hope this evidence will inform clinical practice guidelines across the globe and help save many lives.” Song added.