How magnets could help save stroke victims

drugs guided by magnets to zero in on blood clots are set to revolutionise the treatment of stroke and heart patients.

Biochemists have combined clotbusting drugs with magnetic particles to create ‘nanospheres’ of medication which can be directed to precise points in the body.

The medicine is guided by an external electromagnetic field and sent exactly where it is needed instead of flooding the whole body.

delivering the drugs in this way could make them 1,000 times more effective, trials on animals have shown. Higher concentrations of medicine can also be used as there is little risk of it harming tissue in healthy parts of the body.

In patients who suffer a stroke after a clot forms in their brain, drugs are used to clear the blockage and restore blood supply. The treatment is often the difference between life and death. But current medicines are powerful and very toxic, and in many cases cannot be used or cause severe side-effects.

Being able to direct the drugs precisely where they are needed could make them work better, reduce sideeffects and increase the number of patients who could take them.

scientists at ITMO university in st Petersburg, russia, who developed the technique said the magnetic nanospheres can be simply injected into the bloodstream and then directed to the clot using magnets.

In stroke patients, rapidly getting rid of blockages in the blood vessels in the brain can drastically improve the chances of recovery.

The researchers, whose initial study is published in the journal scientific reports, used a natural enzyme known as urokinase combined with magnetite, an iron-based molecule.

This created a magnetic nanospheres about 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

If initial tests on rabbits succeed, the first trials on humans could be held within two years.

researchers said the technology could be adapted to carry chemotherapy drugs for cancer patients to help reduce damage to healthy cells.