Cheap flu drug helps brain injuries

Researchers are reporting the first treatment to speed recovery from severe brain injuries: a cheap flu medicine whose side benefits were discovered by accident decades ago.

Severely injured patients given amantadine got better faster than those who received a dummy medicine. After four weeks, more in the flu drug group could give reliable yes-and-no answers, follow commands or use a spoon or hairbrush, things few of them could do at the start. Far fewer patients who got amantadine remained in a vegetative state, 17 percent versus 32 percent.

"This drug moved the needle in terms of speeding patient recovery, and that's not been shown before," said neuropsychologist Joseph Giacino of Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, co-leader of the study. He added: "It really does provide hope for a population that is viewed in many places as hopeless."

Doctors began using amantadine for brain injuries years ago, but there had not been a big study to show that it works. The results of the federally funded study appear in today's New England Journal of Medicine. Questions remain: Would people less severely injured benefit? Does amantadine actually improve long-term outcome or just speed up recovery?

Each year, 1.7 million Americans suffer a traumatic brain injury. Falls, car crashes, colliding with or getting hit by an object, and assaults are the leading causes. About 52,000 die each year and 275,000 are hospitalized, many with persistent, debilitating injuries, government figures show.

Amantadine, an inexpensive generic, was approved for the flu in the mid-1960s. The first inkling that it might have other uses came a few years later when it appeared to improve Parkinson's symptoms in nursing home patients.