Hi all,
I wanted to thank everyone who replied to me privately as well as on
Lactnet re alteplase (t-Pa). Someone suggested I email Tom Hale directly
and get his input on its use in breastfeeding moms. He gave me permission
to share his reply with everyone on Lactnet.


Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2001 13:44:30 -0600
From: "Dr. Tom Hale" <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: Texas Tech University School of Medicine
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.77 [en] (WinNT; U)
X-Accept-Language: en
To: Sue Svehla <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: alteplase (t-PA)

"Sue:

Activase®, Alteplase, is a tissue plasminogen activator produced by
recombinant
DNA technology. It is a                purified glycoprotein of 527 amino
acids
with a large molecular weight.  As such,  it is unlikely to ever enter milk.
Even if it did,  it would be digested in the infant's gut and would be
unabsorbed.

Secondly,  its half-life is extremely brief,  only 5-8 minutes and maybe 46
minutes following a 90 minute infusion.

I cannot imagine that it would in any way affect a breastfed infant.

Tom Hale, PH.D
Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Texas TEch Univ. School of Medicine"

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html