ITCH Trial: Protocol for a Randomized, Double Blind Placebo-controlled Trial

Summary

Intracerebral hemorrhage is increasingly becoming a major burden in the society because of significant morbidity as well as mortality. Hematoma volume at the time of presentation as well as hematoma expansion and re-bleed or ongoing bleed further deteriorates the patient making a poor prognosis, however at present no therapy targets this pathological process. Though clinical studies do report benefit of using tranexamic acid in spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage by reducing hematoma expansion rate as well as decreasing ongoing bleed, large randomized controlled trials have not shown any convincing advantage owing to various limitations in their design and methods. However, they uniformly did not find any significant side effect with the use of tranexamic acid. The aim of this study is to test the hypothesis that intravenous tranexamic acid is superior to placebo by reducing hematoma expansion when given within 24 h of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage.

Timeline

Start

2021-02-08

Primary completion

2023-12-05

Completion

2024-06-04

Publications

• Background Qureshi AI, Palesch YY, Barsan WG, Hanley DF, Hsu CY, Martin RL, Moy CS, Silbergleit R, Steiner T, Suarez JI, Toyoda K, Wang Y, Yamamoto H, Yoon BW; ATACH-2 Trial Investigators and the Neurological Emergency Treatment Trials Network. Intensive Blood-Pressure Lowering in Patients with Acute Cerebral Hemorrhage. N Engl J Med. 2016 Sep 15;375(11):1033-43. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1603460. Epub 2016 Jun 8.
• Background van Asch CJ, Luitse MJ, Rinkel GJ, van der Tweel I, Algra A, Klijn CJ. Incidence, case fatality, and functional outcome of intracerebral haemorrhage over time, according to age, sex, and ethnic origin: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Lancet Neurol. 2010 Feb;9(2):167-76. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(09)70340-0. Epub 2010 Jan 5.
• Background Dowlatshahi D, Demchuk AM, Flaherty ML, Ali M, Lyden PL, Smith EE; VISTA Collaboration. Defining hematoma expansion in intracerebral hemorrhage: relationship with patient outcomes. Neurology. 2011 Apr 5;76(14):1238-44. doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e3182143317. Epub 2011 Feb 23.
• Background Brouwers HB, Greenberg SM. Hematoma expansion following acute intracerebral hemorrhage. Cerebrovasc Dis. 2013;35(3):195-201. doi: 10.1159/000346599. Epub 2013 Feb 28.
• Background Steiner T, Bosel J. Options to restrict hematoma expansion after spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage. Stroke. 2010 Feb;41(2):402-9. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.109.552919. Epub 2009 Dec 31.
• Background Flaherty ML, Haverbusch M, Sekar P, Kissela B, Kleindorfer D, Moomaw CJ, Sauerbeck L, Schneider A, Broderick JP, Woo D. Long-term mortality after intracerebral hemorrhage. Neurology. 2006 Apr 25;66(8):1182-6. doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000208400.08722.7c.
• Background Zehtabchi S, Abdel Baki SG, Falzon L, Nishijima DK. Tranexamic acid for traumatic brain injury: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Am J Emerg Med. 2014 Dec;32(12):1503-9. doi: 10.1016/j.ajem.2014.09.023. Epub 2014 Sep 28.
• Background Roos Y, Rinkel G, Vermeulen M, Algra A, van Gijn J. Antifibrinolytic therapy for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: a major update of a cochrane review. Stroke. 2003 Sep;34(9):2308-9. doi: 10.1161/01.STR.0000089030.04120.0E. Epub 2003 Aug 21. No abstract available.
• Background Germans MR, Post R, Coert BA, Rinkel GJ, Vandertop WP, Verbaan D. Ultra-early tranexamic acid after subarachnoid hemorrhage (ULTRA): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2013 May 16;14:143. doi: 10.1186/1745-6215-14-143.
• Background Mahmood A, Roberts I, Shakur H. A nested mechanistic sub-study into the effect of tranexamic acid versus placebo on intracranial haemorrhage and cerebral ischaemia in isolated traumatic brain injury: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial (CRASH-3 Trial Intracranial Bleeding Mechanistic Sub-Study [CRASH-3 IBMS]). Trials. 2017 Jul 17;18(1):330. doi: 10.1186/s13063-017-2073-6.
• Background Anderson CS, Huang Y, Wang JG, Arima H, Neal B, Peng B, Heeley E, Skulina C, Parsons MW, Kim JS, Tao QL, Li YC, Jiang JD, Tai LW, Zhang JL, Xu E, Cheng Y, Heritier S, Morgenstern LB, Chalmers J; INTERACT Investigators. Intensive blood pressure reduction in acute cerebral haemorrhage trial (INTERACT): a randomised pilot trial. Lancet Neurol. 2008 May;7(5):391-9. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(08)70069-3. Epub 2008 Apr 7.
• Background Arumugam A, A Rahman NA, Theophilus SC, Shariffudin A, Abdullah JM. Tranexamic Acid as Antifibrinolytic Agent in Non Traumatic Intracerebral Hemorrhages. Malays J Med Sci. 2015 Dec;22(Spec Issue):62-71.
• Background Sprigg N, Flaherty K, Appleton JP, Al-Shahi Salman R, Bereczki D, Beridze M, Christensen H, Ciccone A, Collins R, Czlonkowska A, Dineen RA, Duley L, Egea-Guerrero JJ, England TJ, Krishnan K, Laska AC, Law ZK, Ozturk S, Pocock SJ, Roberts I, Robinson TG, Roffe C, Seiffge D, Scutt P, Thanabalan J, Werring D, Whynes D, Bath PM; TICH-2 Investigators. Tranexamic acid for hyperacute primary IntraCerebral Haemorrhage (TICH-2): an international randomised, placebo-controlled, phase 3 superiority trial. Lancet. 2018 May 26;391(10135):2107-2115. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31033-X. Epub 2018 May 16.
• Background Gayet-Ageron A, Prieto-Merino D, Ker K, Shakur H, Ageron FX, Roberts I; Antifibrinolytic Trials Collaboration. Effect of treatment delay on the effectiveness and safety of antifibrinolytics in acute severe haemorrhage: a meta-analysis of individual patient-level data from 40 138 bleeding patients. Lancet. 2018 Jan 13;391(10116):125-132. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32455-8. Epub 2017 Nov 7.
• Background O'Donnell MJ, Chin SL, Rangarajan S, Xavier D, Liu L, Zhang H, Rao-Melacini P, Zhang X, Pais P, Agapay S, Lopez-Jaramillo P, Damasceno A, Langhorne P, McQueen MJ, Rosengren A, Dehghan M, Hankey GJ, Dans AL, Elsayed A, Avezum A, Mondo C, Diener HC, Ryglewicz D, Czlonkowska A, Pogosova N, Weimar C, Iqbal R, Diaz R, Yusoff K, Yusufali A, Oguz A, Wang X, Penaherrera E, Lanas F, Ogah OS, Ogunniyi A, Iversen HK, Malaga G, Rumboldt Z, Oveisgharan S, Al Hussain F, Magazi D, Nilanont Y, Ferguson J, Pare G, Yusuf S; INTERSTROKE investigators. Global and regional effects of potentially modifiable risk factors associated with acute stroke in 32 countries (INTERSTROKE): a case-control study. Lancet. 2016 Aug 20;388(10046):761-75. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(16)30506-2. Epub 2016 Jul 16.
• Background Antihypertensive Treatment of Acute Cerebral Hemorrhage (ATACH) investigators. Antihypertensive treatment of acute cerebral hemorrhage. Crit Care Med. 2010 Feb;38(2):637-48. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0b013e3181b9e1a5.
• Eilertsen H, Menon CS, Law ZK, Chen C, Bath PM, Steiner T, Desborough MJ, Sandset EC, Sprigg N, Al-Shahi Salman R. Haemostatic therapies for stroke due to acute, spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2023 Oct 23;10(10):CD005951. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD005951.pub5.

Drugs

Indications