Washington University physicians at Barnes-Jewish Hospital are seeking participants for a study comparing two treatments for blood clots in the legs known as deep vein thromboses (DVTs).
The multicenter ATTRACT (Acute Venous Thrombosis: Thrombus Removal with Adjunctive Catheter-Directed Thrombolysis) Trial will test the use of catheter-mounted technology designed to chew up DVTs and directly administer clot-busting drugs.
The purpose of the study is to determine if using ATTRACT technology as a first-line treatment for DVTs promotes better outcomes than current standards of care. Participants in the study will be followed for two years.
Vedantham
The ATTRACT treatment includes administration of the clot-busting drug known as tissue plasminogen activator. New techniques and technology will allow physicians to deliver the drug directly to the clot. With this approach, excessive bleeding is a potential risk.
Researchers are seeking to enroll 50 participants into the St. Louis portion of the study. They need patients within two weeks of DVT diagnosis. Qualified participants accepted for the two-year trial will be randomly assigned to receive either conventional or the newer treatment and may be responsible for treatment costs not covered by their insurance or Medicare.
Conventional treatments seek to prevent clot migration and formation of new clots but do not actively attempt to break up the original clot. Risks of this approach include the possibility that part of the clot may break off and travel to the lungs, where it could become a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism. Another risk is post-thrombotic syndrome, which occurs in about 50 percent of all DVT patients treated conventionally and causes long-term chronic pain, swelling, venous ulcers and difficulty walking.
Suresh Vedantham, MD, a Washington University interventional radiologist within the school’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, is the national principal investigator for the trial.
“This is the first large-scale test of these techniques, and the potential to change clinical DVT practice on a large scale is very exciting,” says Vedantham, also professor of radiology and of surgery. “If the trial is positive, it will alter the paradigm to say we don’t just prevent the next clot, we’ve got to also remove the existing clot first.”
The $10 million trial is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
For more information, call 1-866-974-CLOT (2568).
Washington University School of Medicine’s 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.