Dabigatran was slightly but not significantly superior to aspirin at the prevention of recurring stroke in patients with a recent history of embolic stroke of undetermined source over a median follow-up of 19 months (6.6% rate of recurrent stroke for dabigatran vs. 7.7% for aspirin; hazard ratio, 0.85; 95% confidence interval, 0.69-1.03; P = 0.10), according to RE-SPECT ESUS, a multicenter, randomized, double-blind trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine (2019 May 15. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1813959).
We first reported on the results of this trial when they were presented at the World Stroke Congress by lead investigator Hans-Christoph Diener, MD. Find our coverage at the link below.