Research projects

Ictus, or ischemic stroke, is one of the main causes of death and disablement in Spain. Fibrinolytic therapy using t-PA is the only option to reopen the occluded cerebral artery. Despite its proven usefulness and clinical benefits, the treatment does not always work and between 6% and 10% of the patients suffer side effects such as cerebral haemorrhages, in some cases serious, and in around 50% of the cases the drug does not dissolve the clot, so the artery remains occluded. The Geno-tPA study seeks to evaluate whether or not each patient's specific genetic load predicts or conditions their response to t-PA treatment. Why do some patients respond so well to the drug and others do not? If we can identify markers of good or bad response to fibrinolytic treatment, we may be able to personalise the treatment in the next few years, making it more reliable and more efficient. Furthermore, the project seeks to discover new molecules related to cerebral haemorrhaging and the reopening of the artery that could be used as future daily treatments. To do this, we will analyse the incidence of a set of 192 genetic polymorphisms in one of the largest series of ischemic stroke patients treated with t-PA (540) in the world, searching for associations of these polymorphisms that can help us to determine the patients' progress following t-PA treatment.