Progesterone for TBI

A new medical indicates progesterone, a female hormone often associated with pregnancy and sex drive is an effective treatment for traumatic brain injuries.

The study, performed at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, was published earlier this week in the Annals of Emergency Medicine. Doctors tested the treatment on 100 brain injury patients. Half of them received progesterone for a 3-day period and the others received a placebo. They found that patients who received the hormone retained more neural functioning and had higher survival rates from moderate brain injuries than those given the placebo.

This could be a landmark breakthrough for the 1.4 million Americans who suffer a traumatic brain injury each year. Of those, 50,000 die and many more are left with permanent damage including memory loss, concentration problems, and difficulty performing daily tasks.

Brain injuries are common but have limited treatment options adding to the importance to the discovery.

How Brain Injuries Occur

The brain is not firmly attached to any part of your skull and “floats” in a protective layer of fluid. If enough force passes through your body it will impact the side of your skull causing swelling and severing nerve connections.

Brain tissue does not regenerate so it is important to treat injuries as soon as possible or else the damage to your brain becomes even worse.

Often times the injury may not seem significant and some people attribute their symptoms to post-traumatic stress. Doctors stress that even slight head injuries should be examined by a physician as soon as possible.

Statistics

According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control falls and motor vehicle accidents account for nearly half of all brain injuries with athletic and violence related injuries in third and fourth place respectively.

1.1 million people are treated in emergency rooms and about 40% of cases involve children under the age of 15.

Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are facing significant rates of brain injuries in part to technological advances against once fatal attacks. The Pentagon reported that 250 of those cases involved short-term or chronic inability of patients to respond to others or care for themselves.

A New Hope

For years scientists speculated that progesterone may be a possible treatment option for brain injuries. In animal studies, the hormone was able to reduce swelling and diminish nerve cell loss.

The next phase of the study is a multiple center clinical trial on larger numbers of patients. Doctors are optimistic that those studies will prove the effectiveness of the treatment and that progesterone may be a viable option within the next 3 years.