About & History
SITS – Safe Implementation of Treatments in Stroke, is a non-profit, research-driven, independent, international collaboration. It’s an initiative by the medical profession to assure excellence in acute treatment and secondary prevention of stroke, as well as to facilitate clinical trials.
SITS started as an initiative by participants in the European-Australian randomised stroke thrombolysis studies (ECASS). SITS started as a registry for IV thrombolysis with alteplase.
SITS was given a broader international role with the European Union authorities requesting that all patients treated with IV thrombolysis should be registered in SITS for a period of three years.
Registration in SITS became a condition for approval of treatment with intravenous thrombolysis in the EU.
Also, the European Medicines Agency (then EMEA, currently EMA) endorsed SITS as the registry for follow-up on thrombolysis treatment in acute ischemic stroke.
SITS MOST, SITS Stroke-Monitoring Study, was performed with the aim to assess the safety and efficacy of intravenous alteplase as thrombolytic therapy within the first 3 hours of onset of acute ischaemic stroke.
The SITS-MOST study made a global impact on stroke treatment guidelines confirming safety and efficacy for the IVT-routine in less than 4.5 hours.
SITS-MOST Study was published in LANCET, read the article here.
SITS launched the Endovascular Thrombectomy Registry (TBY).
Launching of the Atrial Fibrillation Registry (AF).
In collaboration with ESO-Angels and Angels award program SITS launched the SITS-QR (Quality Registry).
Launching of Intracerebral hemorrhage registry (ICH).
Development work of Cerebral Venous Thrombosis protocol in minimalized and standard version. SITS will also launch Endovascular Thrombectomy (TBY) protocol in minimalized version.
Today, over 260 000 patient files are included from over 80 countries on five continents, which makes SITS a world-leading stroke network.
More than 80 scientific reports have been published in international peer-reviewed journals based on data from SITS.
Our Collaborators
Support and Funding
SITS is financed directly and indirectly by grants from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm County Council, the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation, the Swedish Order of St. John, Friends of Karolinska Institutet, and private donors, as well as from an unrestricted sponsorship from Boehringer-Ingelheim.
SITS has previously received grants from the European Union Framework 7, the European Union Public Health Authority and Ferrer Internacional.
SITS is currently conducting studies supported by Boehringer-Ingelheim and EVER Pharma, as well as in collaboration with Karolinska Institutet, supported by Stryker, Covidien, Phenox and Codman.
