CRASH-3 Trial examined the effect of tranexamic acid on head injury-related death in adults with TBI who were within 3 h of injury, had a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 12 or lower or any intracranial bleeding on CT scan, and no major
extracranial bleeding.
The results indicated a reduction in the risk of head injury-related death with tranexamic acid in patients with mild-to-moderate head injury (RR 0·78 [95% CI 0·64–0·95]) but in patients with severe head injury (0·99 [0·91–1·07]) there was no clear evidence of a reduction (p value for heterogeneity 0·030).
The effect of tranexamic acid on head injury-related death stratified by time to treatment and recorded no evidence of heterogeneity (p=0·96). The RR of head injury-related death with tranexamic acid was 0·96 (95% CI 0·79–1·17) in patients randomly assigned within 1 h of injury, 0·93 (0·85–1·02) in those randomly assigned within more than 1 h and 3 h or fewer after injury, and 0·94 (0·81–1·09) in those randomly assigned more than 3 h after injury.