UT Tyler Awarded NIH Grant to Help Improve Pulmonary Medications

Steven Idell, MD, PhD

The University of Texas at Tyler was awarded by the National Institutes of Health to help improve blood-clotting medications for treatments in lung disorders and diseases.

The project is designed to identify dosing of fibrinolytic, or clot-busting, agents that can be safely and effectively administered to the compartment surrounding the lung to dissolve clots large enough to impair lung function. Dr. Steven Idell, UT Tyler professor of medicine and senior vice president for research, serves as principal investigator for the one-year NIH project.

This research could positively impact those with chest trauma with bleeding and retained clot formation and other forms of bleeding, including post-surgical bleeding, or coagulation disorders, such as those associated with cancer, that may cause a hemothorax – when blood collects in the space between the lung and chest wall, or pleural cavity, according to Idell.