• Philip J Devereaux and POISE-2 Investigators.
• Am. Heart J. 2014 Jun 1;167(6):804-9.e4.

BackgroundWorldwide, 200 million adults undergo major noncardiac surgery annually, and 10 million of these patients will have a major vascular complication. Low-dose clonidine and low-dose acetyl-salicylic acid (ASA) may prevent major perioperative vascular complications. We therefore initiated the POISE-2 trial to establish the perioperative effects of these 2 interventions.MethodsThe POISE-2 trial is a 2 × 2 factorial randomized controlled trial of low-dose ASA vs. placebo and low-dose clonidine vs. placebo in 10,000 patients at risk for a perioperative cardiovascular event who are undergoing noncardiac surgery. Both study drugs are initiated prior to surgery (goal 2-4 hours) and are continued after surgery. Patients, health care providers, data collectors, and outcome adjudicators are blinded to treatment allocation. The primary outcome is a composite of mortality and nonfatal myocardial infarction at 30 days after randomization.ResultsTo date, the POISE-2 trial has recruited more than 9,000 patients from 135 centers in 23 countries. Among the first 7,500 patients recruited, patients' mean age was 68.2 years, 53.4% were male, 34.0% had a history of vascular disease, and 38.3% had diabetes that was treated. Participants had orthopedic (38.1%), general (27.0%), urologic or gynecologic (17.2%), vascular (6.6%), thoracic (5.7%), and other (5.4%) surgery.ConclusionsPOISE-2 is a large international trial that will rigorously evaluate the effects of low-dose clonidine and ASA in patients having noncardiac surgery.Copyright © 2014 The Author. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

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