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SONOlysis in prevention of Brain InfaRctions During Internal carotid Endarterectomy (SONOBIRDIE) trial - study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Hrbáč T, Netuka D, Beneš V, Nosáľ V, Kešnerová P, Tomek A, Fadrná T, Beneš V et al.

Trials, 2017

704 participants

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) is a beneficial procedure for selected patients with an internal carotid artery (ICA) stenosis. Surgical risk of CEA varies from between 2 and 15%. The aim of the study is to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of sonolysis (continual transcranial Doppler monitoring, TCD) using a 2-MHz diagnostic probe with maximal diagnostic energy on the reduction of the incidence of stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA) and brain infarction detected using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) by the activation of the endogenous fibrinolytic system during CEA.

METHODS/DESIGN: Design: a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial.

SCOPE: international, multicenter trial for patients with at least 70% symptomatic or asymptomatic ICA stenosis undergoing CEA.

INCLUSION CRITERIA: patients with symptomatic or asymptomatic ICA stenosis of at least 70% are candidates for CEA; a sufficient temporal bone window for TCD; aged 40-85 years, functionally independent; provision of signed informed consent. Randomization: consecutive patients will be assigned to the sonolysis or control (sham procedure) group by computer-generated 1:1 randomization. Prestudy calculations showed that a minimum of 704 patients in each group is needed to reach a significant difference with an alpha value of 0.05 (two-tailed) and a beta value of 0.8 assuming that 10% would be lost to follow-up or refuse to participate in the study (estimated 39 endpoints).

ENDPOINTS:…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 704 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

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