Calgary Journal Online

University of Calgary research suggests gender affects how well people recover from stroke

Women who don't get a drug that breaks up clots after they had a stroke fare worse than men who don't receive the drug. But, men and women recover equally well when given the drug, a University of Calgary study suggests.

Women who have suffered from a stroke need to be treated with the drug as soon as possible said Dr. Michael Hill, the study’s lead author and director of the stroke unit at Foothills Hospital. The drug, called a tissue plasminogen activator, or tPA, dissolves the blood clots in the brain that can cause a stroke. The drug works by mimicking an enzyme found in human blood called plasmin, which breaks down clots.

Anne Tremblay, 34, received the drug after she suffered a stroke in October 2009.

Study participant Anne Tremblay and her husband Don Bray, with 7 ½-month-old daughter Anouk, in a consultation at the stroke unit in Foothills Hospital.

Photo: Silvia Pikal/Calgary Journal

“It started with a big headache,” Tremblay said, describing the stroke. “I went to lie down, but I couldn’t sleep it off. Suddenly, the walls and the ceiling started turning like crazy, and I had a hard time breathing.”

Terrified, she yelled for her husband, Don Bray.

Bray phoned the ambulance and Tremblay was taken to the Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary. Tremblay’s condition became worse.

“My left side started getting more and more numb, and my voice was mumbly, as if I was really drunk. Then I passed out,” Tremblay said.

Unconscious, Tremblay was transferred to Foothills Hospital, where Hill treated her.

Since Tremblay was unconscious, her husband had to make a split-second decision regarding his wife’s treatment.

“Go ahead and do whatever you have to do,” Bray told Hill. Hill explained the consequences of the drug to Bray.

The drug only works in 30 to 40 per cent of stroke cases, and bleeding in the brain can occur in one in 18 patients given the drug; when bleeding occurs there is a 45 per cent fatality rate according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Thus, there is about a 2.5 per cent chance of fatality if taking the drug.

Desperate to save his wife, Bray agreed to the treatment and his wife recovered without complications.Tremblay became part of the study at the hospital and credits the drug for her recovery.

“I hope the study can help other women,” Tremblay said.

More than 50,000 strokes occur in Canada each year; that’s one stroke every 10 minutes, and each year more than 14,000 Canadians die from stroke, according to the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation.

It’s speculative why women don’t recover as well as men without the drug, Hill said.

Thirty per cent of women in the study were compared to seven per cent of men at the time of stroke.

Hill said the widows are alone after their stroke, and maybe they aren’t receiving proper care and that’s why they do worse.

Hill added that there are also biological factors to be considered.

“More women suffer from post-stroke depression than men,” Hill said.

But with the drug, women respond just as well as men, according to the study.

This is probably because the drug prevents the disability caused by stroke, and the women can go back to their former lives, Hill said.