Medicine

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This repository contains the published and unpublished research of the Faculty of Medicine by the staff members of the faculty

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    Implementation of a goal-directed Care Bundle for intracerebral hemorrhage: Results of embedded process evaluation in the INTERACT3 trial
    (Public Library of Science, 2024-12) Ouyang, M.; Anjum, A.; Cawley, F. G. M.; Wasay, M.; Ma, L.; Hu , X.; Chen, X.; Malavera, A.; Li, X.; Venturelli, P. M.; De Silva, H. A.; Thang, N. H.; Wahab, W. K.; Pandian, J. D.; Pontes-Neto, O. M.; Abanto , C.; Nigenda, V. C.; Arauz , A.; You , C.; Jan, S.; Song, L.; Anderson, C. S.; Liu, H.; INTERACT3 Investigators
    The third, stepped-wedge, cluster-randomized, Intensive Care Bundle with Blood Pressure Reduction in Acute Cerebral Hemorrhage Trial (INTERACT3), has shown that a goal-directed multi-faceted Care Bundle incorporating protocols for the management of physiological variables was safe and effective for improving functional recovery in a broad range of patients with acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). The INTERACT3 Care Bundle included time- and target-based protocols for the management of early intensive lowering of systolic blood pressure (SBP, target <140mmHg), glucose control (target 6.1-7.8 mmol/L in those without diabetes and 7.8-10.0 mmol/L in those with diabetes), anti-pyrexia treatment (target body temperature ≤37.5°C), and the rapid reversal of warfarin-related anticoagulation (target international normalized ratio <1.5). An embedded process evaluation was conducted to allow a better understanding of how the Care Bundle was implemented in different countries to enhance the transferability of this evidence in the international context. This study used a mixed-methods approach involving interviews, focus group discussions, and surveys to evaluate the implementation outcomes included fidelity, dose, reach, acceptability, appropriateness, adoption, and sustainability. Interviews (n = 27), focus group discussions (n = 3), and quantitative surveys (n = 48) were conducted in 7 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and 1 high-income country during 2019-2022. The Care Bundle was generally delivered as planned and well accepted by stakeholders, although some difficulties were reported in reaching the SBP and glycemic targets. Contextual factors including staff shortage, limited availability of antihypertensive drugs, and delayed systems of care processes, were common barriers to implementing the Care Bundle. Facilitating factors included good communication and collaboration with staff in emergency departments, the development of pathways within available resources, and regular training and monitoring. Our process evaluation provides useful insights into the contextual barriers which need to be addressed for effective scale up of the Care Bundle implementation in a global context.
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    The third intensive care bundle with blood pressure reduction in acute cerebral haemorrhage trial (INTERACT3): an international, stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial
    (Elsevier, 2023) Ma, L.; Hu, X.; Song, L.; Chen, X.; Ouyang, M.; Billot, L.; Li, Q.; Malavera, A.; Li, X.; Muñoz-Venturelli, P.; de Silva, A.; Thang, N.H.; Wahab, K.W.; Pandian, J.D.; Wasay, M.; Pontes-Neto, O.M.; Abanto, C.; Arauz, A.; Shi, H.; Tang, G.; Zhu, S.; She, X.; Liu, L.; Sakamoto, Y.; You, S.; Han, Q.; Crutzen, B.; Cheung, E.; Li, Y.; Wang, X.; Chen, C.; Liu, F.; Zhao, Y.; Li, H.; Liu, Y.; Jiang, Y.; Chen, L.; Wu, B.; Liu, M.; Xu, J.; You, C.; Anderson, C.S.; INTERACT3 Investigators
    BACKGROUND: Early control of elevated blood pressure is the most promising treatment for acute intracerebral haemorrhage. We aimed to establish whether implementing a goal-directed care bundle incorporating protocols for early intensive blood pressure lowering and management algorithms for hyperglycaemia, pyrexia, and abnormal anticoagulation, implemented in a hospital setting, could improve outcomes for patients with acute spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage. METHODS: We performed a pragmatic, international, multicentre, blinded endpoint, stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial at hospitals in nine low-income and middle-income countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam) and one high-income country (Chile). Hospitals were eligible if they had no or inconsistent relevant, disease-specific protocols, and were willing to implement the care bundle to consecutive patients (aged ≥18 years) with imaging-confirmed spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage presenting within 6 h of the onset of symptoms, had a local champion, and could provide the required study data. Hospitals were centrally randomly allocated using permuted blocks to three sequences of implementation, stratified by country and the projected number of patients to be recruited over the 12 months of the study period. These sequences had four periods that dictated the order in which the hospitals were to switch from the control usual care procedure to the intervention implementation of the care bundle procedure to different clusters of patients in a stepped manner. To avoid contamination, details of the intervention, sequence, and allocation periods were concealed from sites until they had completed the usual care control periods. The care bundle protocol included the early intensive lowering of systolic blood pressure (target <140 mm Hg), strict glucose control (target 6·1-7·8 mmol/L in those without diabetes and 7·8-10·0 mmol/L in those with diabetes), antipyrexia treatment (target body temperature ≤37·5°C), and rapid reversal of warfarin-related anticoagulation (target international normalised ratio <1·5) within 1 h of treatment, in patients where these variables were abnormal. Analyses were performed according to a modified intention-to-treat population with available outcome data (ie, excluding sites that withdrew during the study). The primary outcome was functional recovery, measured with the modified Rankin scale (mRS; range 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) at 6 months by masked research staff, analysed using proportional ordinal logistic regression to assess the distribution in scores on the mRS, with adjustments for cluster (hospital site), group assignment of cluster per period, and time (6-month periods from Dec 12, 2017). This trial is registered at Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03209258) and the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR-IOC-17011787) and is completed. FINDINGS: Between May 27, 2017, and July 8, 2021, 206 hospitals were assessed for eligibility, of which 144 hospitals in ten countries agreed to join and were randomly assigned in the trial, but 22 hospitals withdrew before starting to enrol patients and another hospital was withdrawn and their data on enrolled patients was deleted because regulatory approval was not obtained. Between Dec 12, 2017, and Dec 31, 2021, 10 857 patients were screened but 3821 were excluded. Overall, the modified intention-to-treat population included 7036 patients enrolled at 121 hospitals, with 3221 assigned to the care bundle group and 3815 to the usual care group, with primary outcome data available in 2892 patients in the care bundle group and 3363 patients in the usual care group. The likelihood of a poor functional outcome was lower in the care bundle group (common odds ratio 0·86; 95% CI 0·76-0·97; p=0·015). The favourable shift in mRS scores in the care bundle group was generally consistent across a range of sensitivity analyses that included additional adjustments for country and patient variables (0·84; 0·73-0·97; p=0·017), and with different approaches to the use of multiple imputations for missing data. Patients in the care bundle group had fewer serious adverse events than those in the usual care group (16·0% vs 20·1%; p=0·0098). INTERPRETATION: Implementation of a care bundle protocol for intensive blood pressure lowering and other management algorithms for physiological control within several hours of the onset of symptoms resulted in improved functional outcome for patients with acute intracerebral haemorrhage. Hospitals should incorporate this approach into clinical practice as part of active management for this serious condition. FUNDING: Joint Global Health Trials scheme from the Department of Health and Social Care, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, and the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust; West China Hospital; the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia; Sichuan Credit Pharmaceutic and Takeda China.
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    INTEnsive care bundle with blood pressure reduction in acute cerebral hemorrhage trial (INTERACT3): study protocol for a pragmatic stepped-wedge cluster-randomized controlled trial
    (BioMed Central, London, 2021) Song, L.; Hu, X.; Ma, L.; Chen, X.; Ouyang, M.; Billot, L.; Li, Q.; Muñoz-Venturelli, P.; Abanto, C.; Pontes-Neto, O.M.; Antonio, A.; Wasay, M.; de Silva, A.; Thang, N.H.; Pandian, J.D.; Wahab, K.W.; You, C.; Anderson, C.S.
    Background: Early intensive blood pressure (BP) lowering remains the most promising treatment for acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), despite discordant results between clinical trials and potential variation in the treatment effects by approach to control BP. As the third in a series of clinical trials on this topic, the INTEnsive care bundle with blood pressure Reduction in Acute Cerebral hemorrhage Trial (INTERACT3) aims to determine the effectiveness of a goal-directed care bundle protocol of early physiological control (intensive BP lowering, glycemic control, and pyrexia treatment) and reversal of anticoagulation, in acute ICH. Methods: INTERACT3 is a pragmatic, international, multicenter, stepped-wedge (4 phases/3 steps), cluster-randomized controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of a multifaceted care package in adult (age ≥ 18 years) patients (target 8360) with acute ICH (< 6 h of onset) recruited from 110 hospitals (average of 19 consecutive patients per phase) in low- and middle-income countries. After a control phase, each hospital implements the intervention (intensive BP lowering, target systolic < 140 mmHg; glucose control, target 6.1-7.8 mmol/L and 7.8-10.0 mmol/L in those without and with diabetes mellitus, respectively; anti-pyrexia treatment to target body temperature ≤ 37.5 °C; and reversal of anticoagulation, target international normalized ratio < 1.5 within 1 h). Information will be obtained on demographic and baseline clinical characteristics, in-hospital management, and 7-day outcomes. Central trained blinded assessors will conduct telephone interviews to assess physical function and health-related quality of life at 6 months. The primary outcome is the modified Rankin scale (mRS) at 6 months analyzed using ordinal logistic regression. The sample size of 8360 subjects provides 90% power (α = 0.05) to detect a 5.6% absolute improvement (shift) in the primary outcome of the intervention versus control standard care, with various assumptions. Discussion: As the largest clinical trial in acute ICH, INTERACT3 is on schedule to provide an assessment of the effectiveness of a widely applicable goal-directed care bundle for a serious condition in which a clearly proven treatment has yet to be established.
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    Cluster-randomized, crossover trial of head positioning in acute stroke
    (Massachusetts Medical Society, 2017) Anderson, C.S.; Arima, H.; Lavados, P.; Billot, L.; Hackett, M.L.; Olavarría, V.V; Muñoz Venturelli, P.; Brunser, A.; Peng, B.; Cui, L.; Song, L.; Rogers, K.; Middleton, S.; Lim, J.Y.; Forshaw, D.; Lightbody, C.E.; Woodward, M.; Pontes-Neto, O.; de Silva, H.A.; Lin, R.T.; Lee, T.H.; Pandian, J.D.; Mead, G.E.; Robinson, T.; Watkins, C.; Headpost Investigators and Coordinators
    BACKGROUND: The role of supine positioning after acute stroke in improving cerebral blood flow and the countervailing risk of aspiration pneumonia have led to variation in head positioning in clinical practice. We wanted to determine whether outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke could be improved by positioning the patient to be lying flat (i.e., fully supine with the back horizontal and the face upwards) during treatment to increase cerebral perfusion. METHODS: In a pragmatic, cluster-randomized, crossover trial conducted in nine countries, we assigned 11,093 patients with acute stroke (85% of the strokes were ischemic) to receive care in either a lying-flat position or a sitting-up position with the head elevated to at least 30 degrees, according to the randomization assignment of the hospital to which they were admitted; the designated position was initiated soon after hospital admission and was maintained for 24 hours. The primary outcome was degree of disability at 90 days, as assessed with the use of the modified Rankin scale (scores range from 0 to 6, with higher scores indicating greater disability and a score of 6 indicating death). RESULTS: The median interval between the onset of stroke symptoms and the initiation of the assigned position was 14 hours (interquartile range, 5 to 35). Patients in the lying-flat group were less likely than patients in the sitting-up group to maintain the position for 24 hours (87% vs. 95%, P<0.001). In a proportional-odds model, there was no significant shift in the distribution of 90-day disability outcomes on the global modified Rankin scale between patients in the lying-flat group and patients in the sitting-up group (unadjusted odds ratio for a difference in the distribution of scores on the modified Rankin scale in the lying-flat group, 1.01; 95% confidence interval, 0.92 to 1.10; P=0.84). Mortality within 90 days was 7.3% among the patients in the lying-flat group and 7.4% among the patients in the sitting-up group (P=0.83). There were no significant between-group differences in the rates of serious adverse events, including pneumonia. CONCLUSIONS: Disability outcomes after acute stroke did not differ significantly between patients assigned to a lying-flat position for 24 hours and patients assigned to a sitting-up position with the head elevated to at least 30 degrees for 24 hours. (Funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia; HeadPoST ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02162017 .).
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    Regional variation in acute stroke care organisation
    (Elsevier, 2016) Muñoz Venturelli, P.; Robinson, T.; Lavados, P.M.; Olavarría, V.V.; Arima, H.; Billot, L.; Hackett, M.L.; Lim, J.Y.; Middleton, S.; Pontes-Neto, O.; Peng, B.; Cui, L.; Song, L.; Mead, G.; Watkins, C.; Lin, R.T.; Lee, T.H.; Pandian, J.; de Silva, H.A.; Anderson, C.S.; HeadPoST Investigators
    BACKGROUND: Few studies have assessed regional variation in the organisation of stroke services, particularly health care resourcing, presence of protocols and discharge planning. Our aim was to compare stroke care organisation within middle- (MIC) and high-income country (HIC) hospitals participating in the Head Position in Stroke Trial (HeadPoST). METHODS: HeadPoST is an on-going international multicenter crossover cluster-randomized trial of 'sitting-up' versus 'lying-flat' head positioning in acute stroke. As part of the start-up phase, one stroke care organisation questionnaire was completed at each hospital. The World Bank gross national income per capita criteria were used for classification. RESULTS: 94 hospitals from 9 countries completed the questionnaire, 51 corresponding to MIC and 43 to HIC. Most participating hospitals had a dedicated stroke care unit/ward, with access to diagnostic services and expert stroke physicians, and offering intravenous thrombolysis. There was no difference for the presence of a dedicated multidisciplinary stroke team, although greater access to a broad spectrum of rehabilitation therapists in HIC compared to MIC hospitals was observed. Significantly more patients arrived within a 4-h window of symptoms onset in HIC hospitals (41 vs. 13%; P<0.001), and a significantly higher proportion of acute ischemic stroke patients received intravenous thrombolysis (10 vs. 5%; P=0.002) compared to MIC hospitals. CONCLUSIONS: Although all hospitals provided advanced care for people with stroke, differences were found in stroke care organisation and treatment. Future multilevel analyses aims to determine the influence of specific organisational factors on patient outcomes.
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