ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT02755324Updated Nov 18, 2020

Single-sex Controlled Human Schistosomiasis Infection: Safety and Dose Finding

An interventional study of male Schistosoma mansoni cercariae in Schistosomiasis and Schistosoma Mansoni, sponsored by Leiden University. Completed at 1 site in Netherlands. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 45 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2020-11-18.

Sponsored by Leiden University · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
17
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years to 45 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Groups of 3 or 7 volunteers will be exposed to a predetermined number of male Schistosoma mansoni cercariae until 10 volunteers are found infected.

02

Conditions studied

  • Schistosomiasis
  • Schistosoma Mansoni

Browse trials for

03

In context

Schistosomiasis

79 studies on the registry are indexed under Schistosomiasis; 14 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 17 is below the median of 289 across 52 interventional studies indexed under Schistosomiasis.

Browse Schistosomiasis studies →

Lead sponsor

Leiden University is the lead sponsor of 19 studies on the registry; 3 are open to participants now.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 45 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

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.

Inclusion criteria

  1. Subject is aged ≥ 18 and ≤ 45 years and in good health.
  2. Subject has adequate understanding of the procedures of the study and agrees to abide strictly thereby.
  3. Subject is able to communicate well with the investigator, is available to attend all study visits.
  4. Subject will remain within Europe (excluding Corsica) during the study period and is reachable by mobile telephone from week 3 to week 12 of the study period.
  5. Subject agrees to refrain from blood donation throughout the study period.
  6. For female subjects: subject agrees to use adequate and not to breastfeed for the duration of study.
  7. Subject has signed .

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Any history, or evidence at screening, of symptoms, physical signs or abnormal laboratory values suggestive of systemic conditions, such as cardiovascular, pulmonary, renal, hepatic, neurological, dermatological, endocrine, malignant, haematological, infectious, immune-deficient, psychiatric and other disorders, which could compromise the health of the volunteer during the study or interfere with the interpretation of the study results. These include, but are not limited to, any of the following:

    • body weight \<50 kg or (BMI) \<18.0 or >30.0 kg/m2 at screening;
    • positive , or screening tests;
    • the use of immune modifying drugs within three months prior to study onset (inhaled and topical and oral anti-histamines exempted) or expected use of such during the study period;
    • history of of any organ system (other than localized basal cell carcinoma of the skin), treated or untreated, within the past 5 years;
    • any history of treatment for severe psychiatric disease by a psychiatrist in the past year;
    • history of drug or alcohol abuse interfering with normal social function in the period of one year prior to study onset.
    • Any clinically significant abnormalities (including extended ) on
  2. The chronic use of any drug known to interact with praziquantel, or artesunate or lumefantrine metabolism (e.g. phenytoin, carbamazepine, phenobarbital, primidon, dexamethasone, rifampicin, cimetidine, flecainide, metoprolol, imipramine, amitriptyline, clomipramine, class I and III anti-arrythmics, antipsychotics, antidepressants, macrolides, fluoroquinolones, imidazole- and triazole antimycotics, antihistamines) Because lumefantrine may cause extension of QT-time, chronic use of drugs with effect on QT interval are excluded from the study.
  3. For female subjects: positive urine pregnancy test at screening.
  4. Any history of schistosomiasis or treatment for schistosomiasis.
  5. Positive serology for schistosomiasis or elevated serum or urine circulating anodic antigen or positive Schistosoma serology at baseline.
  6. Known to or (including co-medication) for use of praziquantel or, artesunate or lumefantrine.
  7. Being an employee or student of the department of parasitology or infectious diseases of the Leiden University Medical Center.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(13)

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.

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.

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.

Clinically significant

Judged by the study doctor to matter for your health or for the study. It is a doctor’s decision, so ask the study team if you are unsure whether something counts.

BMI (body mass index)

Weight in kilograms divided by height in metres squared. Example: 70 kg and 1.75 m gives 70 ÷ (1.75 × 1.75) ≈ 22.9.

What counts as overweight or obesity differs between countries (some use lower cut-offs), so go by the range the study states.

HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus, which weakens the immune system.

Many studies now accept people whose HIV is controlled on treatment, judged by the viral load and the CD4 count. Check the limits this study sets.

Hepatitis B tests

Hepatitis B is a virus that infects the liver. These are separate tests: HBsAg positive usually means a current infection (a recent vaccination can briefly cause it too); total anti-HBc (HBcAb) positive means an infection now or in the past; HBV DNA measures how much virus is in the blood.

Some studies accept a past infection if HBV DNA is undetectable, sometimes with antiviral medicine during the study. Check what this study allows.

Hepatitis C tests

Hepatitis C is a virus that infects the liver. An HCV antibody test can stay positive after an infection has cleared (and is occasionally positive without one); an HCV RNA test shows whether the virus is there now.

After treatment, hepatitis C counts as cured when HCV RNA is still undetectable 12 weeks or more after the treatment ended. Studies often accept people cured this way.

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.

Cancer (malignancy)

Malignancy means cancer. Criteria about another or earlier malignancy ask whether you have had a different cancer, usually within a set number of years.

Some are commonly allowed, such as treated skin cancers other than melanoma and early cancers removed completely — check the exceptions this study lists.

QT and QTc

On an ECG, the QT interval is the time the heart’s lower chambers take to activate electrically and recover in each beat. QTc is that time adjusted for heart rate (QTcF by Fridericia’s formula, QTcB by Bazett’s). Some medicines lengthen it, and a long QTc can raise the risk of a dangerous heart rhythm.

The study may name a correction formula and a limit in milliseconds, often around 450–480.

ECG (electrocardiogram)

A recording of the heart’s electrical activity, taken with stickers on the chest, arms and legs. It takes a few minutes and does not hurt.

Hypersensitivity

An allergy, or another reaction of the immune system, to a substance. “Hypersensitivity to the study drug” means a known allergic reaction to it — not every side effect a medicine can have.

Contraindication

A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Other
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
17 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Intervention

    Volunteers will be exposed to escalating doses of male Schistosoma mansoni cercariae

    Biological: male Schistosoma mansoni cercariae

Interventions

  • Biologicalmale Schistosoma mansoni cercariae

    Viable male Schistosoma mansoni cercariae of the Puerto Rican strain

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Number of grade 3 and 4 adverse events, possibly, probably or definitely related to controlled human Schistosoma mansoni infection with male cercariae.

    Time frame: 20 weeks

  2. The number of male cercariae at which 100% volunteers show detectable Schistosoma mansoni circulating anodic antigen (CAA).

    Time frame: 12 weeks

Secondary outcomes

  1. Average number of weeks until positive serum circulating anodic antigen test

    Time frame: 12 weeks

  2. Comparison of the height of the peak serum circulating anodic antigen concentration in low dose compared with high dose group

    Time frame: 12 weeks

  3. Comparison of the humoral (antibody) response profile by protein and glycan array between infected and uninfected individuals

    Time frame: 1 year

  4. Differences in in ex vivo lymphocyte profiles between infected and uninfected individuals

    Time frame: 1 year

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Leiden University Medical Center
    Leiden, 2333 ZA, Netherlands
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Langenberg MCC, Hoogerwerf MA, Janse JJ, van Lieshout L, Corstjens PLAM, Roestenberg M; CoHSI clinical trial team. Katayama Syndrome Without Schistosoma mansoni Eggs. Ann Intern Med. 2019 May 21;170(10):732-733. doi: 10.7326/L18-0438. Epub 2019 Jan 8. No abstract available. PubMed 30615787 ↗
  • Langenberg MCC, Hoogerwerf MA, Koopman JPR, Janse JJ, Kos-van Oosterhoud J, Feijt C, Jochems SP, de Dood CJ, van Schuijlenburg R, Ozir-Fazalalikhan A, Manurung MD, Sartono E, van der Beek MT, Winkel BMF, Verbeek-Menken PH, Stam KA, van Leeuwen FWB, Meij P, van Diepen A, van Lieshout L, van Dam GJ, Corstjens PLAM, Hokke CH, Yazdanbakhsh M, Visser LG, Roestenberg M. A controlled human Schistosoma mansoni infection model to advance novel drugs, vaccines and diagnostics. Nat Med. 2020 Mar;26(3):326-332. doi: 10.1038/s41591-020-0759-x. Epub 2020 Feb 17. PubMed 32066978 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reached

Ran from Oct 2016 to primary completion in Jul 2018, 20 months.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Apr 25, 2016
First posted
Apr 28, 2016
StartActual
Oct 27, 2016
Primary completionActual
Jul 19, 2018
CompletionActual
Jan 21, 2019
Last update
Nov 18, 2020
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Nov 18, 2020, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT02755324
Lead sponsor
Leiden University
Responsible party
Meta Roestenberg (MD, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center) — Principal investigator
First posted
Apr 28, 2016
Start date
Oct 27, 2016
Primary completion
Jul 19, 2018
Completion
Jan 21, 2019
Last update
Nov 18, 2020

Study contacts

Meta Roestenberg
principal investigator · LUMC

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Nov 2020. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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