The main ASTRAL trial has now partially closed to recruitment. We are however still recruiting from centres that are registered in the ASTRAL cardiac sub-studies. Only patients that consent to enter both the main trial and the sub-studies are permitted to enter at this stage.
However the sub-studies need as many patients as we can get as soon as possible, so if you are from a centre that is registered for these, please keep the recruitment drive going!
Balloon angioplasty and/or endovascular stenting are being used increasingly often among patients with atherosclerotic renovascular disease (ARVD). Although these procedures do result in obvious improvements in arterial patency, there is currently no good evidence that they delay progressive decline of renal function. However, since revascularisation is associated with a definite procedural risk, such a procedure might not be justified if the benefits to renal function were small and outweighed by the procedural hazards.
The ASTRAL trial is designed to address the issue of whether renal arterial revascularisation with balloon angioplasty and/or endovascular stenting can safely prevent progressive renal failure among a wide range of patients with ARVD.
