The life expectancy of stroke patients may be significantly increased by the use of two drugs which reduce blood pressure, a new study has found.
The results of the six-year study involving 6,000 stroke patients in Europe, Asia and Australia, including 715 people in Ireland and the UK, have been described by a Dublin-based specialist as "very encouraging".
A combination of two drugs were given to the stroke patients to reduce their blood pressure over a five-year period, resulting in the rate of repeat strokes, heart attacks and deaths among the patients being cut by between a quarter and one-third.
More than 8,000 people in the Republic suffer acute strokes every year.
Dr Des O'Neill, chairman of the Stroke Council of the Irish Heart Foundation, said the findings - announced at a conference in Sweden yesterday - were very encouraging.
He said the study was helpful for two reasons: it made it clear it was good to reduce blood pressure after a stroke, something not previously known, and it revealed what type of medication was likely to be most effective in achieving this reduction.
However, Dr O'Neill said it was likely many of the patients in the study were also getting stroke unit-type care, which increased the chances of their survival. There are only two such units in the State, at Tallaght Hospital in Dublin and St Camillus Hospital, Limerick.
The two drugs used in the study were perindopril, a blood pressure drug, and indapamide, a diuretic used to treat water retention and high blood pressure. Treatment with both would cost patients just over £200 a year.
During the study the reduction in all types of strokes among those on whom the drugs were used was 28 per cent, with major heart attacks, including fatal ones, cut by 26 per cent. The reduction in non-fatal heart attacks was 26 per cent.
The trials also showed a reduction in the serious consequences of stroke, including disability and dementia.
Prof John Reid, Regius professor of medicine and therapeutics at the University of Glasgow and the co-ordinator of the UK and Ireland patients involved in the study, said the results were "very important". The study was presented at the European Society of Cardiology in Stockholm.
Mr Eoin Redahan, of the Stroke Association in the UK, said studies show patients who suffer a stroke have a 40 per cent risk of having another stroke. "Anything that helps to reduce the risk of secondary stroke or TIA (mini-stroke) in patients is good news."