[Treatment of cerebral infarction: is there a reasons for hope?]

Physiopathologic bases of ischemic stroke treatment in acute phase are known since the seventies. Although few molecules have proved their efficacy in experimental models, no effective treatment is already available. Therapeutical trials about cerebral neuroprotectors efficacy and safety are still ongoing. On the other hand, studies concerning fibrinolytics have reached a conclusion the last year. Even if the fibrinolysis remains a dangerous treatment, to be administered with circumspection and in selected patients, if is the first treatment who has demonstrate an efficacy in stroke. Then, we have some reasons to be optimist and have to pursue on this way in order to nearly define a therapeutical scheme associating cerebral neuroprotection and fibrinolysis.