New treatment for paracetamol overdose

Each year 80,000 patients are hospitalised in the US for paracetamol overdose, the leading cause of liver damage in the US and Europe. The current treatment is effective at treating the liver damage, but because its efficacy is limited to being given within 8 hours since the overdose, scientists have been looking for alternative treatments. Melanie Jans-Singh spoke with clinical scientist Christof Gaunt, about the discovery made by Chapel Hill University scientists, of a new molecule that can treat the damage done by the paracetamol overdose to the liver specifically. The results are published in Science Translational Medicine.