Stroke is a medical emergency and can cause permanent neurological damage or even death if not promptly diagnosed and treated. It is the third leading cause of death and the leading cause of adult disability in the United States and industrialized European nations. It is predicted that stroke will soon become the leading cause of death worldwide.

The symptoms of stroke can be quite heterogeneous, and patients with the same cause of stroke can have widely differing handicaps. Conversely, patients with the same clinical handicap can in fact have different underlying causes.

Called ancrod, the fibrinogen depleting drug is an enzyme derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper snake. This pit viper snake venom has been found to be a most potent natural anticoagulant. It is crucial that the drug which also acts to break up the clot and reduce blood viscosity be administered promptly within hours of the onset of the stroke.

The cause of stroke is an interruption in the blood supply, with a resulting depletion of oxygen and glucose in the affected area. This immediately reduces or abolishes neuronal function, and also initiates an ischemic cascade which causes neurons to die or be seriously damaged, further impairing brain function.

Risk factors for stroke include advanced age, hypertension (high blood pressure), previous stroke or TIA (transient ischemic attack), diabetes mellitus, high cholesterol, cigarette smoking, atrial fibrillation, migraine with aura, and thrombophilia. In clinical practice blood pressure is the most important modifiable risk factor of stroke, however many other risk factors, such as cigarette smoking cessation and treatment of atrial fibrillation with anticoagulant drugs, are important.

If a person has a stroke what occurs is that a blood vessel to the brain becomes blocked or non functional. Blood cannot flow through the blood vessel to the area of the brain it serves. The blood vessel may be narrowed by atherosclerosis (cholesterol crystals in the wall of the blood vessel), the artery may be blocked by a blood clot, it may be damaged or the heart just cannot pump enough blood into the artery. The snake venom may well help in the treatment of acute ischemic strokes.

Ancrod differs from previous drugs in that the current therapies must be administered within three hours or less. In real life, and with real life logistics, as well as travel and treatment admission times, often the stroke patient is limited with options for therapy by the time they reach their treatment options. The medications derived from this snake venom can be given up to six hours opening up a whole new therapeutic window.

Currently studies are underway at a number of major medical centers to evaluate stroke trials with this medication derived from the snake venom for the treatment of acute strokes. What will be looked at is if the drug is given within six hours of a person having a sudden ischemic stroke will those patients suffer less damage related to the stroke or not. That is will the snake venom drug help people to the extent that stroke victims given the Ancrod snake venom derived drug have a lower level of disability and a higher level of function than those who were given the drug - 90 days after the tragic event.

Who know it may well be that snake in the grass that best helps out your family member or friend return back to health and function after a sudden stroke attack.