Magnesium for acute stroke (Intravenous Magnesium Efficacy in Stroke trial): randomised controlled trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Magnesium Sulfate in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 2589 patients taking part.

PubMed indexes the participants as older adults, both men and women.

Predefined subgroup analyses were for the primary endpoint in patients in whom treatment commenced within 6 h versus after 6 h, ischaemic versus non-ischaemic strokes, and cortical stroke syndromes versus non-cortical strokes.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized, placebo-controlled and pilot study.

The patients were allocated by chance, so the Magnesium Sulfate group and the comparison group should start out alike.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Magnesium Sulfate group a baseline to be compared against.

It is described as a pilot, a small early test of whether a larger Magnesium Sulfate study would be practical.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Acute Disease, Confidence Intervals, Logistic Models, Magnesium Sulfate, Neuroprotective Agents, Odds Ratio and Stroke.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and pilot study of Magnesium Sulfate in 2589 patients.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2004 (Lancet (London, England)), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.