“The beauty of these nanoparticles is that they will not deliver this drug to any other place but the area of stress,” says Heyu Ni, platelet biologist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, specifically referring to blood clot sites. Another advantage of the approach, he says, is that it gets around the issue of estimating the amount of anticlotting medication to give a patient. High dosages are effective but could cause excessive bleeding, whereas small doses are much safer but may not get the job done. The nanoparticles skirt this problem by depositing a small amount of medication directly on the clot. He notes that the nanoparticles could be used as a diagnostic tool to seek out blockages that may need to be removed surgically, since places where the nanoparticles wind up are easier to spot with ultrasound. “This could change our concept of how to deliver drugs effectively. I would think of this study as possibly revolutionary.”
I’ve been dealing with blood clots since I was ten years old. If this new treatment proves to be effective, the amount of pain and suffering it will alleviate in the world is huge. Not to mention the fact that they may have discovered a radically different and potentially much more effective way of administering medicine.
Medical science, let me take you out to dinner tonight.
