Effect of Oral Minocycline on Clinical Recovery Process in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Acute ischemic stroke is one of the most common causes of death worldwide with one new case being diagnosed every five seconds. The mortality rate and permanent disability are very high and the current treatment still needs to improve to a large extent. Minocycline drug, a derivative of tetracycline, is an anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic protection of neurons, the role of which has been studied recently in recovery from nerve degenerative diseases, especially stroke. This study aimed at evaluating the effect of minocycline in the recovery of patients with a history of stroke.
In this randomized clinical trial, 42 patients with ischemic stroke were divided to 2 groups: receiving minocycline 200 mg for 5 days and receiving the placebo. Aspirin was prescribed to all patients. Clinical assessment before and 90 days after the intervention was performed by the National institutes of health stroke scale score (NIHSS).
A total of 36 patients completed the study. The number of females in the case and control groups was 55.5% and 51.1%, respectively. In the case group, NIHSS decreased from 9.55 to 6.1 and in the control group, it decreased from 10.2 to 7.33, which was statistically significant. Although the NIHSS decreased in patients taking minocycline more than the control group, this difference was not statistically significant.
According to the findings of this study, it seems that minocycline could be used as a complementary therapy in patients with ischemic stroke. However, these results need to be confirmed by further studies in this field.