The condition is more common in young and middle-aged women. The research is published in the January 8, 2008, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study compared 78 people with cerebral venous thrombosis in Germany to 201 healthy people. Researchers found that a variant of the gene called factor XII C46T is more common in people with cerebral venous thrombosis than in healthy people. A total of 16.7 percent of those with cerebral venous thrombosis had the gene variant, compared to 5.5 percent of those without the condition.
The results were the same after adjusting for factors that could affect blood clotting, such as age, gender, smoking, and use of oral contraceptives.
These results need to be confirmed, but it appears that people with cerebral venous thrombosis should be tested for this gene and should be considered for use of blood thinning medication to prevent future blood clots, said study author Christoph Lichy, MD, of the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
Other genetic variants have also been linked to cerebral venous thrombosis.
Cerebral venous thrombosis is a rare condition that is the cause of less than one percent of strokes and other cerebrovascular disorders, but it results in death approximately 10 percent of the time.
Symptoms include headaches, seizures, visual problems, and motor and sensory problems. In addition to genetic factors, other factors that can cause cerebral venous thrombosis include head injury, infection, and certain drugs.
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Future studies, Levy added, also will use cells derived from the animal itself, to avoid potential rejection problems that may occur with unmatched cells. The current study used unmatched cells, delivering bovine cells to rat arteries, but only over a 48-hour period, too brief for rejection to occur.
The current study builds on research published earlier this year by Levy and collaborators, in which they used magnetic fields and nanoparticles to deliver DNA to arterial muscle cells in culture. That research focused on a delivery system for gene therapy, while the current study represents cell therapy. Levy suggests future applications may combine both therapies, using endothelial cells to deliver beneficial genes to damaged arteries.
The delivery system, says Levy, might also be applied to other sites where physicians implant steel stents to deliver medication, such as the esophagus, bile ducts and lungs. Another potential use might be in orthopedic procedures, in which surgeons implant steel nails to stabilize fractured bones, or use steel screws to correct spinal abnormalities. In such cases, magnetized nanoparticles might deliver bone stem cells to strengthen bony structures.
Magnetic fields produced by ordinary MRI machines could suffice to deliver cells to targets where they could promote healing, since MRI uses uniform fields, which are key to our targeting strategy, added Levy. This method could become a powerful medical tool.
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