An Australian-made drug has helped change the life of a father and stroke survivor, with experts hopeful the early interim results will pave the way for an international trial.
Aaron Piper, 40, was getting his kids ready for school when a large clot lodged in his brain, causing him to have a stroke.
Brain scans in hospitals revealed the clot caused a significant amount of oxygen deprivation to the back of the brain.
Aaron had initially felt dizzy and then started to lose his balance.
"I got to the stage where I was crawling, my mobility and coordination was pretty much shot," Piper told 9News.
"Forty is obviously very young to have something that's going to impair me for the long run, especially with my children being so young."
He recovered with the help of a new drug, called TBO-309, which is designed to dissolve clots more effectively, while simultaneously avoiding the risk of bleeding.
Dr Carlos Garcia-Esperon from Newcastle's John Hunter Hospital said the new drug was used in conjunction with standard clot-busting medicine.
"He was struggling to speak properly and he had double vision. In the scans we did the day after there was no longer any clot there."
The Sydney-developed drug is being trialled at several Australian hospitals, with Aaron one of 10 patients to receive the infusion.
Professor Shaun Jackson from the Heart Research Institute and Charles Perkins Centre said their discovery is designed to make the standard clot-busting treatment, called tPA, more effective as currently not all patients benefit from existing therapy to restore blood flow.
"Unfortunately it doesn't work in all patients, in fact in some stroke patients it works in one in five patients.
He said the trial aims to recruit 80 stroke patients.
"The early signs we think are encouraging."
"There is a huge unmet need in the world and this is the sort of therapy that could be used globally."
The early results will be presented at a European stroke conference in a few weeks and researchers say they're on track to expand the trial to include other countries around the world.
