Polyethylene glycol for the brain

2008/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Medikuntza

American researchers at Purdue University in Indiana experience a conventional polymer, polyethylene glycol, to treat head injuries. Polyethylene glycol has the advantage of being able to close the fractures of brain cells, as well as the points on superficial wounds.

For now, the tests have been done with rats. They have provoked violent contusions to laboratory rats, injected polymer into the blood, and measured the time it took to recover. Polyethylene glycol has good results and no serious side effects have occurred. In addition, it does not take much technology to reach the patient's brain, since an aqueous polymer solution comes injected into blood. If it is demonstrated that it does not produce problems in humans, in the future these solutions could be the usual ones in the first aid kits. But it takes a lot of time to prove it.