18 Mar Xenon Lessens Hypoxic Brain Damage After Cardiac Arrest
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Ruut Laitio, MD, PhD
Department of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care
Division of Perioperative Services, Intensive Care Medicine and Pain Management
Turku University Hospital, Turku, Finland
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Laitio: Numerous animal studies with different types of brain injury (hypoxic,
toxic,stroke, traumatic brain injury) have established the
neuroprotective effect of xenon during the last 15 years.
We designed a proof-of-concept study to find out whether xenon has neuroprotective
effect in humans. An important finding from animal studies was that
xenon has at least additive or even synergistic neuroprotective
interaction with hypothermia and the results were based on
histopathological and functional outcomes. These putative
neuroprotective properties had not been reported in humans until now.
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?
Dr. Laitio: We found that xenon lessens hypoxic brain damage caused by global
ischemia after cardiac arrest. This was demonstrated by MRI which
revealed significantly more severely injured white matter in the
controls (i.e. hypothermia treatment alone). Although this study was not
powered to show significant difference in mortality the survival
analysis revealed an promising results; mortality was lower in the xenon
group with an impressive HR of 0.49, p=0.05).
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Dr. Laitio: This proof-of-concept study demonstrated the first time that xenon is
able to provide neuroprotective effect against ischemic brain damage.
Xenon is a promising but a large clinical trial (Phase III) is needed to
show whether xenon could become a new tretment for cardiac arrest
patient by showing improvement in short-term and/or long-term functional
outcome. In addition, further studies are needed in patients other types
of brain injury, e.g. stroke and traumatic brain injury. Plans for the
phase 3 trial are underway in liaison with a Neuroprotexeon Company and
US FDA. Neuroprotexeon aims to start in the first quarter of 2017.
MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Dr. Laitio: New high tech xenon delivery devices should be developed that xenon
could be administered at very early pre-hospital phase after an incident
leading to brain injury.
MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.
Citation:
Laitio R, Hynninen M, Arola O, et al. Effect of Inhaled Xenon on Cerebral White Matter Damage in Comatose Survivors of Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2016;315(11):1120-1128. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.1933.
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Ruut Laitio, MD, PhD (2016). Xenon Lessens Hypoxic Brain Damage After Cardiac Arrest MedicalResearch.com
Last Updated on March 18, 2016 by Marie Benz MD FAAD