The IST-3 collaborative group wishes chiefly to acknowledge the support of all the patients who participated in the study, and the many individuals not specifically mentioned in the paper who have supported the study. IST-3 is an investigator led trial. The University of Edinburgh and the Lothian Health Board are co-sponsors. The start-up phase was supported by a grant from the Stroke Association, UK. The expansion phase was funded by The Health Foundation UK. The main phase of the trial is funded by: UK MRC and managed by NIHR on behalf of the MRC-NIHR partnership, The Research Council of Norway, AFA Insurances (Sweden), the Swedish Heart Lung Fund, The Foundation of Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg, Stockholm County Council and Karolinska Institute Joint ALF-project grants (Sweden), the Government of Poland, the Australian Heart Foundation, Australian NHMRC, the National Heart Foundation Australia, the Swiss National Research Foundation, the Swiss Heart Foundation, Foundation for health and cardio-/neurovascular research, Basel, Switzerland and the Assessorato alla Sanita, Regione dell'Umbria. Drug and placebo for the 300 patients in the double-blind component of the start-up phase were supplied by Boehringer-Ingelheim GMBh. IST-3 acknowledges the extensive support of the NIHR Stroke Research Network, NHS Research Scotland (NRS), through the Scottish Stroke Research Network, and the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research Clinical Research Centre (NISCHR CRC). The imaging work was undertaken at the Brain Imaging Research Centre http://www.bric.ed.ac.uk, a member of the SINAPSE collaboration http://www.sinapse.ac.uk, at the Division of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Edinburgh. SINAPSE is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Executive (CSO). Additional support was received from Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland, Desacc, University of Edinburgh, Danderyd Hospital R&D Department, Karolinska Institutet, the Dalhousie University Internal Medicine Research Fund. The study was designed, conducted, analysed and reported independently of all of the sponsors and funding agencies.
Trial Steering Committee
Independent Chairman, Professor Colin Baigent (university of Oxford), Professor David Chadwick, (Former Chairman, Retired)): University of Liverpool; Independent members: Dr Pippa Tyrrell (Manchester University), Professor Gordon Lowe (Glasgow University); Co-principal Investigators: Professor Peter Sandercock (Edinburgh University); Professor Richard Lindley (Professor of Geriatric Medicine, University of Sydney); Chief Investigator for Neuroradiology: Professor Joanna Wardlaw (Edinburgh University) Statistician: Geoff Cohen; Trial Manager: Ms Karen Innes. Heather Goodare: lay representative
CT reading panel
Joanna Wardlaw, Andrew Farrall, Rüdiger von Kummer, Lesley Cala, Anders von Heijne, Zoe Morris, Alessandro Adami, Andre Peeters, Gillian Potter, Nick Brady.
Data Monitoring Committee
Professor Rory Collins, Oxford University, UK (Chairman), Professor Philip Bath (Nottingham University), Professor Jan van Gijn (former member, now retired) (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands), Professor Richard Gray (University of Oxford), Professor Robert Hart (McMaster University, Canada), Professor Salim Yusuf (McMaster University, Canada).
Event Adjudication Committee
Keith Muir, Peter Sandercock, Richard Lindley
National Co-ordinators and Associate National Co-ordinators
Australia: Richard Lindley, Graeme J. Hankey. Austria: Karl Matz, Michael Brainin. Belgium: Andre Peeters. Canada: Gord Gubitz, Stephen Phillips. Italy: Stefano Ricci. Mexico: Antonio Arauz. Norway: Eivind Berge, Karsten Bruins Slot. Poland: Anna Czlonkowska, Adam Kobayashi. Portugal: Manuel Correia. Switzerland: Phillippe Lyrer. Sweden: Veronica Murray, Andreas Terent, Bo Norrving, Per Wester: UK: Graham Venables
Trial Coordinating Centre, Edinburgh
Karen Innes, Alison Clark, David Perry, Vera Soosay, David Buchanan, Sheila Grant, Eleni Sakka, Jonathan Drever, Pauli Hanley, Indee Herath, Ann Leigh Brown, Paul Chmielnik, Christopher Armit, Andrea Walton, Mischa Hautvast, Steff Lewis, Graeme Heron, Sylvia Odusanya, Pam Linksted, Ingrid Kane, Will Whiteley, Robin Sellar, Philip White, Peter Keston, Andrew Farrell, Zoe Morris, Hector Miranda. National Co-ordinating centres: Italy(up to September 2008) Maria Grazia Celani, Enrico Righetti (after September 2008) Silvia Cenciarelli, Tatiana Mazzoli Central Follow up for Italy: Teresa Anna Cantisani. Poland Jan Bembenek Sweden Eva Isaakson. Norway Eivind Berge, Karsten Bruins Slot.
Centres and countries
The list of participating centres and the collaborators at each site are listed in additional file 2.