Drug therapies for ischemic brain damage part1

Abstract

Neuroprotection means to describe the putative effect of interventions protecting the brain under pathological condition, such as global ischemia, stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain hypoxia and so on. The main concept of neuroprotection is to prevent the cascades of pathological molecular events following ischemia that leads to massive calcium influx, activation of free radical reaction and cell death. This review article describes the mechanisms of ischemic brain damage and summarize the neuroprotection trials to date. We also try to consider the perspectives of drug therapies. Clinical trials should use randomization techniques, which reduce imbalance of prognostically important baseline variables and choose the proper sample size of trial should be based on expectations of a clinical effect.