College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine

Data from international stroke trial shared

Data from the largest-ever trial of ‘clot-busting’ thrombolytic therapy for acute ischaemic stroke is now available for use by other researchers.

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The third International Stroke Trial was the largest-ever randomised controlled trial of intravenous thrombolysis (clot-busting) treatment for patients with acute ischaemic stroke.

The publication of the key reports from the trial have been highly cited and have had a significant impact on clinical practice.

In accordance with its published plan to make the trial data available to bona fide researchers, the IST-3 collaborative group has lodged an anonymised version of the dataset in Edinburgh Datashare.

Application for access to this data is via a controlled access process, which is detailed on the IST3 page on Edinburgh Datashare.

This step meets the data sharing requirements of the principal funder of the trial, the UKMRC, and the recommendations of the ICMJE, and is in accordance with the MRCMethodology Hubs’ recent publication on  good practice principles for sharing individual participant data from publicly funded clinical trials (Tudur Smith et al., BMC Med 2015;13: 298).

Related links

Article in the Lancet

Abstract in the Lancet

IST3 clinical trial website