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Biotech / Medical : Biotime-Nasdaq's best kept secret? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen How who wrote (824)	4/2/1998 12:44:00 PM
From: Jim Roof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1432

<<I don't think Hextend can exceed the hetastarch limit of 1.5 liters/day (20ml/kg/day).>> Do you mean that it CAN not or that it MAY not? The conference in Puerto Rico confirmed that up to 5 liters were tolerated by patients. Who is it who says that there is a limit? Does the FDA make such a limit? Physicians? As for the use of drugs and fluids - many physicians prescribe medications for indications that they have never been tested for. My wife was given a heart medication when her pregnancy was in trouble because one of the side effects of this medicine is a reduction in amniotic fluid (which we temporarily needed). FDA approval was not needed for that. <<Also, I think that the maximum dosage is determined by hemodilution (anemia and dilutional coagulopathies).>> Anemia is a problem that can to some degree be tolerated. There has been documentation that Hextend does successfully address some coagulation problems. The generic hetastarch levels that are in use are due to the limitations of that fluid. Hextend's very existence is based upon improvement of these limits. This sounds a lot like Alan Ableson who ragged on BTIM a while back by bringing up hetastarch limitations and saying that proves the case against Hextend. That's like saying HDTV won't work because a TV set only has 480 lines of vertical resolution. Jim