A Phase 2 interventional study of AST-120 in Pouchitis, sponsored by Ocera Therapeutics. Terminated at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 75 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2014-06-18.
Sponsored by Ocera Therapeutics (part of Keenova Therapeutics plc) · Phase 2, Interventional, and Treatment
This is an open-label pilot study in which all patients will receive AST-120 for 4 weeks. Patients will discontinue antibiotics at study entry. They may continue other previously prescribed treatments (e.g., probiotics and/or nutritional agents) at the discretion of the study doctor. The purpose of the study is to assess whether the investigational medication AST-120 will be a safe and effective treatment for the symptoms of pouchitis, a chronic inflammatory condition, in patients whose symptoms have not responded well to antibiotics. An initial group of 10 patients will be enrolled. If there are no serious side effects associated with the study drug and at least 3 of the 10 patients respond, a second group of 10 patients may be enrolled. Patients will have clinic visits at the start of the study and at week 4. Patients will be checked by phone on a weekly basis for symptom response, compliance and development of side effects. Endoscopies will be performed at the start of the study and at week 4 or early termination.
Patients with acute pouchitis are typically treated with metronidazole or ciprofloxacin for 10-14 days. Most patients with pouchitis respond to these or other antibiotics. Patients who experience frequent relapses and those with chronic pouchitis will require long term maintenance antibiotics. Probiotics may be considered as an alternate to chronic antibiotic therapy for maintenance of remission in chronic antibiotic-dependent pouchitis. In practice, we would institute maintenance therapy for patients who relapse at least 3 times within one year, or within 1 month of discontinuation of antibiotics. Among patients receiving maintenance antibiotics who develop loss of clinical benefit after prolonged treatment, rotation of three or four antibiotics in 1-week intervals may be beneficial. Patients who do not improve with single antibiotics may respond to combination therapy with two antibiotics. If not, they can be treated with topical or oral budesonide. Other options include topical mesalamine (enemas or suppositories), oral sulfasalazine or mesalamine, other topical or oral steroids, and possibly oral bismuth, azathioprine, 6-mercaptopurine or infliximab. However, there is little evidence base for these therapies in the literature, and many of these therapies are expensive and/or potentially toxic. A therapy that does not suppress the immune system, and that has little or no toxicity would be attractive for patients with antibiotic-refractory pouchitis.
AST-120 is manufactured by Kureha Corporation, Japan. The agent was approved in Japan in 1991 for the treatment of patients with chronic kidney disease(CKD). It is comprised of highly adsorptive, porous, spherical carbon particles and is packaged in 2 g sachets for oral administration designed for the treatment of gastrointestinal diseases. AST-120 consists of black microspheres approximately 0.2-0.4 mm in diameter with high adsorption ability and large surface area. Composed mainly of carbon (approximately 96%), the clinical utility of AST-120 is thought to reside in its ability to adsorb small molecular weight toxins, inflammatory mediators, and harmful bile acid products from the gastrointestinal tract, preventing local toxicity and their systemic absorption. AST-120 has a selective adsorption profile for certain acidic and basic organic compounds, and has a significantly lower adsorptive capacity than activated charcoal for digestive enzymes.
In this study, patients with active pouchitis after ileal pouch-anal anastomosis (IPAA) for Ulcerative Colitis with primary symptoms such as increased stool frequency and abdominal pain, and refractory to antibiotics (do not respond to antibiotic therapy for a minimum of 14 days) will be enrolled. Patients must have active pouchitis confirmed by endoscopy and biopsy within 4 weeks of study entry. The diagnosis of active pouchitis will be defined by a PDAI score >7 points, with a combined assessment of symptoms, endoscopy and histology.
Eligible patients will receive AST-120 sachets at 2g three times daily (TID) to be taken between meals at 10:00 am, 3:00 pm and immediately before going to bed for 4 complete weeks. AST-120 is a tasteless, odorless, oral preparation. To take the product, patients will tear open the sachets, drop the contents directly on their tongue and wash it down with 8 ounces of water. Patients will be evaluated at baseline and week 4 or early termination by the study physician, including endoscopies with histology and routine laboratory tests. Patients will be checked on a weekly basis by the study coordinator by phone for symptom response, compliance, and development of adverse events. Quality of Life Assessments (Cleveland Global Quality of Life and Short Inflammatory Bowel Questionnaire) will be conducted at baseline and week 4 or early termination. A patient is defined as having completed study treatment if he/she has received investigational product and is followed for safety through the last on-site visit of the 4 week treatment course.
Any co-prescribed medicine must be given at least 30 minutes before AST-120 administration. The following drugs for pouchitis can be co-prescribed/maintained during AST-120 treatment and their utilization will be recorded as secondary endpoints:
Antibiotics must be stopped by the time of entry into the study. However, antibiotics prescribed to treat infection other than pouchitis will be allowed and recorded.
The need to prescribe any of the following drugs during the study will constitute treatment failure:
In addition patients will be considered to have failed treatment if they have a PDAI score improvement of \< or = 2 points at the end of the trial. Patients will be discontinued from the study if they become pregnant or if warranted by treatment-emergent safety concerns or if, in the opinion of the investigator, it is in the patient's best interest to discontinue the study.
A first cohort of 10 patients will be treated; based on outcome (efficacy and safety: no significant Adverse Event (AE) associated with study drug and at least 3/10 patients responding) a second cohort of 10 patients may be enrolled.
50 studies on the registry are indexed under Pouchitis; 12 are open to participants now.
This study's enrollment of 2 is below the median of 20 across 42 interventional studies indexed under Pouchitis.
Browse Pouchitis studies →Ocera Therapeutics is the lead sponsor of 7 studies on the registry; none are open to participants now.
First submitted before Ocera Therapeutics became part of Keenova Therapeutics plc.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.
Exclusion Criteria:
Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).
Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
Informed consent
Before you join, the study team explains what taking part involves — its purpose, what happens, the risks and possible benefits — and answers your questions, so you can decide freely. Consent is usually recorded on a form (the informed consent form, ICF) signed by you or, where the law allows, by someone legally authorised to decide for you.
You can keep asking questions during the study, you are told of new information that matters, and you can choose to leave at any time.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Investigational drug or device
A drug or device being studied in a clinical trial.
It may be new, or already approved and being studied for another use, dose or form. Criteria often leave out people who took part in another study of one within a recent period, commonly 30 days or five half-lives.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Immunosuppression
A weakened immune system. It can come from an illness, such as HIV or some blood cancers, or from medicines that turn the immune system down, for example after an organ transplant or for an autoimmune disease; steroids at higher doses count.
Read whether the line is about a condition or about medicines, and which medicines and doses it means.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Corticosteroids (steroids)
Anti-inflammatory medicines such as prednisone, prednisolone and dexamethasone — not the anabolic steroids used for muscle.
Studies differ in what they allow: check which steroid medicines, routes (tablets, injections, creams, inhalers, eye drops) and doses this study accepts.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Childbearing potential
Able to become pregnant: from the first period until menopause, unless permanently unable to through surgery (removal of the womb, or of both ovaries or both fallopian tubes).
Criteria for people of childbearing potential usually ask for a negative pregnancy test and for contraception during the study and for a time after it.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Contraception
Ways of preventing pregnancy. “Highly effective” methods fail less than 1% of the time a year when used correctly — for example an IUD or an implant.
Criteria usually say which methods count and how long to keep using them after the last dose, sometimes for male participants too. Some studies accept a partner’s vasectomy if it was confirmed successful and that person is the participant’s only sexual partner.
Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.
Active treatment with AST-120
Drug: AST-120
Response as defined by a decrease in the Pouchitis Diseases Activity Index (PDAI) score of at least 3 points
Time frame: 4 weeks
Safety: Any adverse events (AEs) deemed possibly, probably, or definitely related to treatment with investigational product during 4 weeks of treatment
Time frame: 4 weeks
Remission, as defined as a PDAI score of less than 7 points
Time frame: 4 weeks
Reduction of PDAI clinical symptom subscore of at least 1 point
Time frame: 4 weeks
Reduction of PDAI endoscopic subscore of at least 1 point
Time frame: 4 weeks
Reduction of PDAI histology subscore of at least 1 point
Time frame: 4 weeks
Need for rescue medication/quantity of antidiarrheal medication used during the last week of the trail compared to usage in the week prior to study entry
Time frame: 4 weeks
Quality of Life as measured by the Cleveland Global QoL instrument and Short Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire (SIBDQ)
Time frame: 4 weeks
Significant change in clinical laboratory tests
Time frame: 4 weeks
Worsening GI symptoms (diarrhea, abdominal pain, urgency or bleeding) or new GI and extra-GI symptoms (e.g., headache, nausea, vomiting, constipation)
Time frame: 4 weeks
Significant change in physical examination, including vital signs (blood pressure, heart rate, respiration rate and temperature)
Time frame: 4 weeks
This study is terminated, as verified in Jun 2014. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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Studies of the drugs tested here: AST 120 · Charcoal