MR GENTLE-multicentre randomised controlled trial of ghrelin in anterior circulation ischaemic stroke treated with endovascular thrombectomy: a phase 2 trial

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Ghrelin in this randomized controlled trial publication.

About half of the patients with acute ischaemic stroke treated with endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) remains dependent or dies in the first 90 days.

Why It Was Studied

The trial has been approved and registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05726240).

The first patient has been included in November 2024.

Who Took Part

The study group was 80 patients.

The researchers propose an investigator-initiated, phase 2, randomised, clinical trial with open-label treatment and blinded endpoint assessment in 80 patients with anterior circulation ischaemic stroke treated with EVT and a pre-EVT National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score ≥ 10.

The primary analysis will be a single comparison between the treatment groups of the primary outcome according to the intention-to-treat principle.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and open-label study.

Because people in this Ghrelin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Nothing was hidden in this open-label Ghrelin study: the patients and staff both knew the treatment.

The primary outcome is the NIHSS score on day 7 adjusted for pre-EVT NIHSS and other relevant baseline characteristics.

Secondary outcomes include infarct size on MRI at day 3, adverse events, and functional recovery at 90 days.

The primary effect variable will be the adjusted beta for the difference in NIHSS score, estimated with multi-variable linear regression analysis.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Ghrelin, Thrombectomy, Endovascular Procedures, Ischemic Stroke and Recovery of Function.

The authors tagged it with the keywords Acute ischaemic stroke, Endovascular thrombectomy and Neuroprotection.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and open-label study of Ghrelin in 80 patients.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 1 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2026 (Trials), a journal based in England.

More context: the Ghrelin compound page, all human trials.