Combination Anti-Platelet and Anti-Coagulation Treatment After Lysis of Ischemic Stroke Trial (CATALIST)

Study Summary

Ischemic stroke is caused by a blood clot that blocks the flow of blood to the brain and damages brain cells. The clot, or thrombus, is made up of platelets and fibrin. The medicine alteplase, also known as tPA , is the standard drug used to treat patients with acute ischemic stroke. tPA attacks the fibrin portion of the blood clot. While intravenous (iv) tPA alone is effective in treating the fibrin part of the clot approximately 30% of the time, adding other commercially available drugs such eptifibatide to treat other clot components may improve the effectiveness of iv tPA therapy. This is a clinical trial to determine an acceptable dose of eptifibatide in combination with aspirin, the low molecular weight heparin tinzaparin, and standard iv tPA therapy for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke. Use of clinical and imaging based selection criteria are hypothesized to contribute to treatment safety by selecting patients at lower risk of intracerebral hemorrhage. Also,selection and evaluation of patients by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) criteria will result in a different risk to benefit ratio than selecting patients without MRI criteria and will lead to a different acceptable dose.

Primary Outcome

This is a primary safety outcome or toxicity measure for all subjects. Symptomatic ICH is defined as the presence of two conditions: evidence of hemorrhage on the 72-hour head CT and an increase in the NIHSS score of 4 or more points from the prior examination. Hemorrhage classifications are according to European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study (ECASS). The NIHSS is a 15-item neurologic examination stroke scale used to evaluate the effect of acute stroke on the levels of consciousness, language

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• DRUG Aspirin
• DRUG tinzaparin sodium
• DRUG eptifibatide

Study Locations (3)