ESCAPE-NA1 Trial Brings Hope of Neuroprotective Drugs for Acute Ischemic Stroke: Highlights of the Phase 3 Clinical Trial on Nerinetide

• 作者: Xin-Fu Zhou
• 来源期刊: 神经科学通报（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（4）
• 所属期刊栏目: Research Highlights
• 页码范围: 579-581
• 页数: 3页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Stroke is a leading disease for morbidity and the second leading cause of mortality following ischemic heart disease.The health burden for stroke ranks the fourth of all diseases as measured in disability-adjusted life years [1].Worldwide annual new stroke incidence is approximately 16 million with the increasing trend of an epidemic due to the aging population [2].Despite significant progress in the management of stroke with the introduction of thrombolytic and endovascular thrombectomy therapies in recent years, a large number of patients are still left without any effective treatment due to delayed time windows and contraindications.Furthermore, these therapeutic interventions can only be used in a small fraction of stroke patients in centralized hospitals.For these reasons, neuroprotective therapy is urgently needed.However, even though thousands of neuroprotective drugs have been tested preclinically and clinically, there is no effective neuroprotective drug available for stroke [3].The failure in neuroprotective drug development for stroke is frustrating and the hopeless situation has forced scientists shift attention from early neuroprotection to delayed mechanisms of stroke-related co-morbidities, regeneration, and plasticity [2].