TY - JOUR T1 - Interventional Management of Stroke III Trial: establishing the foundation JF - Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery JO - J NeuroIntervent Surg SP - 235 LP - 237 DO - 10.1136/neurintsurg-2012-010409 VL - 4 IS - 4 AU - Osama O Zaidat AU - Marc A Lazzaro AU - Rishi Gupta AU - Dileep R Yavagal AU - Peter A Rasmussen AU - Joshua A Hirsch AU - Alicia C Castonguay AU - Robert W Tarr Y1 - 2012/07/01 UR - http://jnis.bmj.com/content/4/4/235.abstract N2 - In the wake of the Interventional Management of Stroke (IMS) III independent data safety monitoring board's recommendation on 18 April 2012 to place the IMS III trial on hold due to prespecified planned interim analysis showing the very low likelihood of finding a significant difference between the two treatment arms, one might properly wonder, “What is next”?Restoration of blood flow after acute ischemic stroke (AIS) is associated with improved outcome and reduced mortality.1 2 Death and disability from AIS remains staggering despite the approval of intravenous thrombolysis with tissue plasminogen activator (IV-rtPA) over 15 years ago. The small population that benefits from IV-rtPA is, in part, limited to those patients treated within a narrow time window. Although cerebrovascular imaging is not consistently performed prior to administration of IV-rTPA, there is some evidence that the infusion is most effective in those patients who have small or distal vessel occlusions.3 The likelihood of recanalization with IV-rtPA declines considerably in occlusions of larger vessels such as the proximal middle cerebral artery and terminal internal carotid artery,3 and underscores the need for good AIS revascularization therapy (RT).The IMS I trial suggested that combination therapy with IV-rtPA and an intra-arterial (IA) approach was safe and may be clinically useful in AIS treatment.4 This was further supported by the IMS II trial, a single-arm pilot study showing preliminary estimates of efficacy and safety of combination IV and IA therapy.5 The IMS III trial subsequently became the pioneering phase III randomized multicenter open-label clinical trial that was designed to assess if the combined IV-rtPA and IA approach is superior to IV rt-PA alone when initiated within 3 h of AIS onset (http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00359424).6 The randomization scheme was to enrol two-thirds in the combined arm and one-third in the IV-rtPA alone arm. … ER -