Latest stroke study opens at EEAST

Last week saw 53 paramedics across Peterborough, west Suffolk and north Essex go live for EEAST’s latest clinical research study!

RIGHT-2 is evaluating the pre-hospital administration of GTN patches vs. sham patches by paramedics for FAST positive patients. More paramedics will be joining them in the coming weeks as Ipswich and the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals open to study patients too.

And thanks to our amazing staff, we’ve already recruited EEAST’s first two RIGHT-2 patients, which is an amazing achievement for the first week of go-live. Our huge thanks to Tony Vaughan from Colchester, and James from Cambridgeshire!

Why use GTN in acute stroke care?

GTN could be beneficial to patient recovery; once it is converted to nitric oxide (NO) in the body, NO has both peripheral and systemic effects. In addition to lowering blood pressure, NO is known to be involved in neuroprotection, neurorestoration, suppression of platelet adhesion and the generation of new blood vessels.

Initial research studies have indicated that early administration of transdermal GTN could reduce disability and morbidity for both ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke patients. However, a large robust research study (ie RIGHT-2) is needed to provide the definitive evidence before there is a change in clinical practice.

Research support services would really like to hear from more paramedics at the participating ambulance stations who would like to take part in RIGHT-2.  Please contact Larissa via research@eastamb.nhs.uk for further study information.

And if that wasn’t enough…

You can now learn more about RIGHT-2 and complete the study training via an interactive webinar hosted by the University of Nottingham research team!

The webinar will be held at 10.30am on the 25^th February, and can be accessed from any computer, laptop and smartphone - you will just need a set of speakers to participate. Why not get a group of your friends together and join this ground-breaking ambulance-based research?

The link for the webinar is http://uni-of-nottingham.adobeconnect.com/right2; you will need to enter your name as Guest and you will be taken right to the session.

Published 11th February, 2016