Washington: A common drug used to treat
headache can help save thousands of earthquake victims who die
of "crush syndrome" -- a condition in which their kidneys fail
after being rescued, scientists have claimed.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville,
Tennessee, claimed that their experiments in rats have shown
that the drug "acetaminophen" prevents the syndrome, also
called as rhabdomyolysis, in which muscle debris from crushed
limbs floods the kidneys soon after the limb is freed from
rubble, causing them to fail.
"When you release the pressure on muscle through rescue,
debris goes to the kidney. It`s like a chain reaction, and
acetaminophen blocks it," said Olivier Boutaud, who headed the
research team.
Although the finding has come too late to save lives
following the quake in Haiti, Boutaud is hopeful that "the
treatment can be validated in humans before, or even during,
the next big quake", the New Scientist reported.
According to the researchers, the destruction of muscle
through crushing leads to the release of myoglobin, a protein
vital for delivering oxygen to muscle and other tissue.
When the myoglobin reaches the kidneys it clogs the
tubules and produces harmful chemical agents called free
radicals.
These free radicals destroy fatty membranes in the
kidney, which die and turn black. They also trigger
constriction of blood vessels, cutting off blood flow to the
kidney and halting filtration of blood, rapidly leading to
death through kidney failure.
The condition became known as the "smiling death" in
China after apparently uninjured victims died, said the
report.
For their study, Boutaud and colleagues induced crush
syndrome in rats via muscular injections of sugar.
But after giving them human-equivalent dose of
acetaminophen, the scientists found the drug successfully
blocked both of these processes, whether given before or
shortly after the injury.
Reporting their findings in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, Boutaud said: "We don`t know yet whether
it would work, or how soon we`d need to give it to prevent
kidney damage.
"But we must try because it could save thousands of
lives."
PTI
