The purpose of this pilot study is to evaluate the disease-modifying efficacy of lovastatin in patients with brain arteriovenous malformation.
Brain arteriovenous malformations are lesions that consist of multiple arteries and veins, connecting as a fistula without intervening normal capillary bed. As the disease progresses, the lesion may cause several adverse clinical events including stroke, seizure or even death. For patients with BAVM deemed unsuitable for invasive treatment or who has elected to defer invasive treatment, it is essential to take effective medical management. Lovastatin possesses antiinflammatory and antiproliferative actions in human endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells independent of its lipid-lowing action. These findings suggest that lovastatin may be beneficial for maintaining vascular stability, which may contribute to slowing down the progression of the disease and reducing the incidence of adverse clinical events. The purpose of this pilot study is to evaluate the safety and disease-modifying efficacy of lovastatin in patients with BAVMs. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either combination of lovastatin and symptomatic treatment drugs or combination of placebo and symptomatic treatment drugs. Patients will have post-dose safety follow-up visit at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the study begins. The changes in clinical outcomes, including lesion volume changes and the rate of stroke, seizure or death, will be evaluated in a period of 2 years.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
DOUBLE
Enrollment
1,244
lovastatin 40mg/d 12m
placebo
Beijing Tiantan Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University
Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
Change in the incidence of stroke between two arms
Stroke is defined as a clinically symptomatic event (any new focal neurological deficit, seizure, or new-onset headache) that is associated with imaging findings of haemorrhage or infarction. Haemorrhage is defined as fresh intracranial blood on head CT or MRI, or in the cerebrospinal fluid. Infarction is defined as a new ischaemic lesion on cranial CT or MRI (diffusion-weighted, T2-weighted, or fluid-attenuated inversion recovery MRI).
Time frame: 24 months
Change in AVM volume from baseline MRI
The volume of arteriovenous malformations will be measured by using MRIcron. The brain arteriovenous malformations will be traced directly on the brain MRIs using MRIcron. Masks of the brain arteriovenous malformations will be drawn on each patient's T1 image in native space by board-certified neurosurgeons, who are blinded to the patients' clinical information. Then, the volume of arteriovenous malformations can be calculated by MRIcron.
Time frame: baseline, 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months
Changes in the incidence of seizures and death between two arms
Seizures and death are caused by lesions.
Time frame: 24 months
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