What is tpa used for

Our specialists played a leading role in the development and testing of tPA, the first FDA-approved treatment for stroke caused by a blood clot. Click below to learn more about where you can find compassionate care.

From pioneering new procedures to helping write national treatment guidelines, our physicians are known around the world for their innovation and research in this subspecialty. A tPA is a clot-busting drug that is given to stroke patients at a hospital under the direction of a stroke physician.

It is a very powerful treatment that restores blood flow to the brain by breaking up a blood clot, making the patient better. There are two types of strokes—a stroke caused by a blockage and a stroke caused by bleeding. Blockages occur when an artery is blocked and the brain starts to die because of a lack of oxygen.

A bleeding-type stroke is when a blood vessel has broken open inside the brain. A tPA would only be given to a patient with a blockage-type stroke because it would be very dangerous to give it to a patient that is already bleeding. In order to determine the type of stroke the patient is experiencing, a CT scan would be performed prior to treatment. A tPA is administered through an IV with treatment lasting about one hour.

A tPA can potentially cause bleeding issues, but your physician will assess those risks before treatment. When someone is having a stroke, it is OK to talk to them in a calm voice, even if they are unconscious and cannot speak. Thrombolytic therapy is the use of drugs to break up or dissolve blood clots, which are the main cause of both heart attacks and stroke.

Thrombolytic medicines are approved for the emergency treatment of stroke and heart attack. The most commonly used drug for thrombolytic therapy is tissue plasminogen activator tPA , but other drugs can do the same thing.

Ideally, you should receive thrombolytic medicines within the first 30 minutes after arriving at the hospital for treatment. A blood clot can block the arteries to the heart. This can cause a heart attack, when part of the heart muscle dies due to a lack of oxygen being delivered by the blood. Thrombolytics work by dissolving a major clot quickly.

This helps restart blood flow to the heart and helps prevent damage to the heart muscle. Thrombolytics can stop a heart attack that would otherwise be larger or potentially deadly. Outcomes are better if you receive a thrombolytic drug within 12 hours after the heart attack starts. But the sooner treatment begins, the better the results.

The drug restores some blood flow to the heart in most people. However, the blood flow may not be completely normal and there may still be a small amount of muscle damaged. If you or your family member has suffered a stroke within the last four hours, you may be offered a treatment called TPA recombinant tissue plasminogen activator.

This clot buster is used to break-up the clot that is causing a blockage or disruption in the flow of blood to the brain and helps restore the blood flow to the area of the brain. It is given by intravenous IV , not by mouth. In order to determine whether you or your family member can be offered TPA, a CAT scan an x-ray of the brain will be done as quickly as possible.

This is to find out if the stroke is the type that might be helped by TPA. If bleeding into the brain has caused the stroke, TPA can increase the bleeding into the brain. If this is the case, you will not be able to receive TPA. A blood test will also be taken to check that you do not have a bleeding condition. If the CAT scan shows no bleeding in the brain then we can use the clot-dissolving drug TPA as long as certain conditions are met. The doctor will go over this with you.

Treatment with TPA results in 1 out of every 10 patients treated being cured.