A PIONEERING North-East doctor is helping to promote a revolutionary new treatment for strokes.

Professor Gary Ford, of Newcastle's Freeman Hospital, was one of the first specialists in the UK to use a clot-busting heart drug to treat stroke patients.

Now he is touring the country as part of efforts to encourage greater use of the drug.

At least seven British hospitals are using rtPA (Recombinant Plasmogen Activator) regularly with another 18 due on board in the near future.

Given intravenously, it works by dissolving blood clots and restoring the arterial flow to the brains of patients.

If the patient is treated early enough - it must be given within three hours of the stroke - the results can be dramatic.

One County Durham family who saw an 83-year-old patient recover after being injected with the drug later described the experience as like "witnessing a miracle".

Prof Ford is travelling around the UK, as part of a roadshow backed by the British Association of Stroke Physicians, to deliver training sessions to stroke doctors. In partnership with Glasgow specialist Professor Kennedy Lees, Prof Ford has spoken to large groups of stroke doctors in London and Glasgow and the two specialists plan to address further meetings in Manchester and Nottingham.

"We have had about 90 people at each event," said Prof Ford, who runs one of the largest rtPA treatment programmes in the country.

He is also involved in monitoring the use of rtPA around Europe.

"Prof Lees and I are co-ordinating data to see whether the results of clinical trials can be replicated in practice," said Prof Ford.

He said rtPA appeared to help about two-thirds of selected stroke patients.

Prof Ford predicted that the drug would become an established way of treating moderate to severe stroke patients in Britain. But he believed it will probably be provided in groups of hospitals, which have round-the-clock access to training specialists and scanning facilities.

The use of clot-busting drugs in stroke treatment is due to be considered by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), the watchdog which assesses whether new treatments are cost-effective enough to be used on the NHS.