London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Researchers who found that thousands of lives could be saved by treating recently injured patients with a cheap drug have been shortlisted for a BMJ Group Award.

The CRASH-2 trial collaborators from the Clinical Trials Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine will find out if they have won the Research Paper of the Year category at a ceremony at the London Hilton hotel on May 18.

The Research Paper of the Year award recognises original research that has the potential to contribute significantly to improving health and health care.

A panel of international experts whittled down hundreds of entries from across the globe to produce a shortlist of three.

The LSHTM team has been selected for its paper: “Effects of tranexamic acid on death, vascular occlusive events and blood transfusion in trauma patients with significant haemorrhage (CRASH-2): a randomised, placebo-controlled trial.”

First published in The Lancet last June, the trial found that administration of tranexamic acid – which reduces clot breakdown and is used to treat heavy periods - reduced mortality by around 10% with no evidence of adverse effects from unwanted clotting.

The trial, named CRASH-2, was a large, randomised trial involving more than 20,000 adult patients in 274 hospitals across 40 countries, and was funded by England's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment programme.

The findings have already led to the British military using the therapy treat wounded soldiers in Afghanistan, while further analysis has highlighted the importance of early administration of the drug.

Dr Ian Roberts, Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Clinical Trials Unit at LSHTM, said: “Being shortlisted for this award is great news for the international CRASH-2 collaboration and importantly will help to disseminate the results.”

The CRASH-2 collaborators are up against the AQUAMAT Trial Group, MORU, from Mahidol University, Thailand, and the UK Flexible Sigmoidoscopy Trial Investigators, in the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial College London.

The awards ceremony will be hosted by news presenter Gavin Esler and the BMJ’s editor-in-chief Dr Fiona Godlee.