Educational | Evidence Tranexamic Acid Saves Lives

This is an informative educational video showing the history and compelling evidence tranexamic acid, or TXA, saves lives.

With over a decade of TXA research, it’s time to act.

Healthcare policymakers need to include TXA in their emergency services as urgent treatment of all trauma patients could prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths each year worldwide.

Whilst Japan struggled to recover from the devastation of World War II, husband and wife researchers, Utako and Shosuke Okamoto, were making medical history. Working on blood drawn from their own veins, they identified a powerful inhibitor of blood clot breakdown – a process called fibrinolysis (learn about the mechanism of TXA here). But the full potential of their brainchild – the drug tranexamic acid, or TXA – would not be recognized for decades.

After the CRASH-2 trial randomized 20,000 bleeding trauma patients to get TXA or placebo – that the world woke up to their discovery. When given soon after injury TXA cuts bleeding deaths by a third. Mostly by reducing deaths on the day of the injury. The CRASH-3 trial recruited nearly 13,000 patients with isolated TBI and again found that TXA treatment within 3 hours of injury cuts deaths on the day of injury – even in severe TBI. The effect of TXA on early deaths from any cause in the two CRASH trials is almost identical – compelling evidence that TXA saves lives after traumatic injury. And there were no adverse effects.

TXA treatment is time-critical. TXA should be administered as soon as possible, ideally at the scene within an hour of the injury. Urgent treatment of all trauma patients could prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths each year worldwide.

Where to next:

? For more information on TXA: http://www.txacentral.org/