Abstract 29: The Surgical Trial in Lobar Intracerebral Haemorrhage - Analysis of Crossover Patients

Background: STICH II was an international multicentre pragmatic randomised parallel group trial to establish whether a policy of early surgery (ES) improved outcome compared to a policy of initial conservative treatment (ICT) for patients with superficial lobar intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH). The results of the “intention to treat analysis” have been published and showed a non-significant trend in favour of early surgery. However, as observed in other surgical trials, there was a substantial crossover of patients from the ICT group with 21% having surgery within 14 days of randomisation. This paper investigates these patients and their effect on outcome. Methods: Patients from the ICT group who underwent surgery within 14 days were identified and compared with patients who continued to receive conservative treatment and with patients randomised to ES. The protocol defined “early surgery” as within 12 hours of randomisation so analyses were also conducted using this definition. Per protocol and treatment ...