NIHR SRMRC trial delivery team top three UK recruiter in global TBI study

Worldwide, over 10 million people are killed or hospitalised each year because of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Many patients experience long-lasting or permanent disability, which has profound consequences for them, their families and the wider community.

The Clinical Randomisation of an Antifibrinolytic in Significant Head injury trial – CRASH-3 – has recently closed to recruitment, and hopes to find a new treatment for TBIs. The trial compared the use of tranexamic acid with standard care in patients with traumatic brain injuries. Tranexamic acid has long been used as a clotting treatment in surgery and its application in head injury could be an effective and affordable treatment, potentially saving many thousands of lives and substantially reducing the burden of disability.

CRASH-3 has been one of the longest-running studies in the SRMRC. It opened in 2013 when the SRMRC was in its infancy and has gone on to be one of our most successful trials to date with 300 patients recruited. We are immensely proud to have taken part in this global research project along with 171 other centres across 5 continents who together have recruited 12, 725 patients. The SRMRC team were in the top three of UK sites both for numbers of patients recruited but also for how many patients we recruited in the ‘golden hour’ – the first hour of injury where treatments can be crucial but collecting data can be difficult.

Results will be published in summer 2019 by the trial Sponsor, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and we hope that through our contribution we can help answer this vital question and provide a new treatment for TBIs.

We would like to offer a big thank you to all those that have worked with us to help deliver the study and make it such a success.