London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

A cheap drug used to treat heavy periods could be used to treat soldiers injured in battle, and suffering from severe bleeding.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine carried out a systematic review of trials examining the effectiveness of tranexamic acid (TXA), which reduces clot breakdown, in patients with bleeding after severe injury. The drug is used to reduce heavy menstrual bleeding and is often given during planned surgery to reduce the need for a blood transfusion. They found TXA to reduce the risk of death in injured patients with severe bleeding by about 10% compared to giving no treatment, which equates to over 70,000 lives a year if treatment was rolled out worldwide. On the basis of these exciting new findings, the British military have already started using TXA to treat soldiers wounded in battle in Afghanistan.

Lead Researcher Professor Ian Roberts is co-ordinating editor of the Cochrane Injuries Group, an international network of individuals who prepare and maintain systematic reviews of the effectiveness of interventions in the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of injury. He led the review as part of the CRASH-2 Trial. He comments: 'These results are based on a large number of patients, men and women, who came from many different countries. Given the high quality of evidence for the benefits of this drug, we recommend it be used more widely in injury victims with bleeding'.

Studies are now underway to see if TXA can reduce deaths from post-partum haemorrhage which kills about 100,000 women each year, most of them in developing countries.