The CRASH-2 trial put tranexamic acid on
the map for patients with trauma at risk for significant
haemorrhage. Although the reported 1.5%
absolute mortality reduction was impressive, there are some concern as most of the data was obtained in resource poor countries. Is this
externally valid to us? Perhaps not.
So, more data is needed.
This German study was a retrospective look at a database and registry to try to determine if TXA could be helpful when given
prehospital. It sought to compare sick trauma patients who happened to get TXA
vs. those that did not. They looked at a whole lot of outcome measures.
Its design included some fancy matching of cohorts and some complex propensity scoring.
Without reading any further, it is obvious this design could
never claim cause & effect. At best it would be hypothesis generating. Too
many assumptions, confounding and making decisions based on poor quality registry
data.
For what it’s worth, they found a big early mortality difference
with TXA. It was 5.8% vs. 12.4%. Let’s face it, this is too good to be true. More believable was overall hospital mortality
that was similar in both groups with an absolute trend of 1.5% benefit in the TXA
group… Wait a minute, where have we seen this before? CRASH-2 anyone?
The authors conclude, “until
further evidence emerges, the results of this study support the use of TXA
during prehospital treatment of severely injured patients.”
This conclusion is a stretch if only looking at this paper.
But given other data on TXA, I think the overall message is reasonable.
Good news; we
will probably be getting much better data soon. The PATCH
trial is estimated to wrap up in December of this year. This large
multi-centre double blind RCT of TXA is what we genuinely need to answer the
question.
So why did we need to raise the hypothesis?
Covering:
Wafaisade A, Lefering R, Bouillon B, et al. Prehospital
administration of tranexamic acid in trauma patients. Crit Care. 2016;20:143.
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