Dangerous bleeding after childbirth could be treated with a $1 injection
A woman’s discovery gets put to good use
More than 50 years ago, Japanese doctor Utako Okamoto discovered tranexamic acid (TXA). It was a cheap drug known to reduce bleeding, but there was no commercial interest. For years, the pharmaceutical industry overlooked Okamoto’s findings.
But the results of a recent clinical trial show TXA may be able to reduce the risk of death among women who experience postpartum hemorrhage as a result of childbirth. A single injection of the drug — which costs less than $1 a dose — may be able to save tens of thousands of lives each year.
In the study, known as the WOMAN (or World Maternal Antifibrinolytic) Trial, patients were randomized to receive either a placebo or TXA, which helps the blood to clot. The treatment, given intravenously, was used alongside other actions that emergency doctors would normally take to try to stop such bleeding.
In analyzing the outcomes of the women, the research team, co-led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’s Ian Roberts, found that the risk of death from bleeding was reduced by 20 percent for the women who got TXA compared with those who got nothing.
If the medicine was given within three hours of the start of bleeding, the results were even better. In these cases, the risk of death was reduced by 30 percent.
Although the results of the study are promising, Roberts said there’s one drawback: Many women in the developing world give birth in remote areas without someone who has been trained to give an intravenous injection. To make the drug more accessible, researchers will have to figure out how to administer TXA in simpler ways, such as developing a pill.
Original story by The Washington Post’s Ariana Eunjung Cha.
