ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT03126552CHHILUpdated Dec 21, 2021

Establishing a Controlled Human Hookworm Infection Model at Leiden University Medical Center

An interventional study of Necator americanus L3 larvae in Necator Americanus Infection, sponsored by Leiden University Medical Center. Completed at 1 site in Netherlands. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 45 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2021-12-21.

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

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
4
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
18 Years to 45 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Four healthy hookworm-naive volunteers will be exposed to 50 L3 Necator americanus larvae once and will retain infection for up to 2 years.

Read the detailed description

Four volunteers will be exposed to 50 Necator americanus L3 larvae. Volunteers will be followed on a weekly basis until week 12 after infection. If volunteers develop a patent infection, defined by detectable egg production in stool by microscopy at any timepoint within week 9 to 12, they will be scheduled to donate faeces on request.

Two years after infection or if volunteers do not excrete eggs detectable by microscopy on week 9 to 12, volunteers will be treated with a 3-day regimen of albendazole to abrogate the infection. Retreatment with albendazole will be given to volunteers who remain positive for hookworm after treatment.

Six months after the treatment, volunteers will undergo their last visit.

02

Conditions studied

  • Necator Americanus Infection

Browse trials for

Keywords

  • hookworm
  • controlled human infection model
03

In context

Ancylostomiasis

41 studies on the registry are indexed under Ancylostomiasis; 2 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 4 is below the median of 219 across 38 interventional studies indexed under Ancylostomiasis.

Browse Ancylostomiasis studies →

Lead sponsor

Leiden University Medical Center is the lead sponsor of 334 studies on the registry; 110 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

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

In order to be eligible to participate in this study, a subject must meet all of the following criteria:

  1. Subject is aged ≥ 18 and ≤ 45 years.
  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. Subjects are able to respond to phone or email within 24 hours during the first 12 weeks of the study.
  5. Subject agrees to refrain from blood donation to Sanquin or for other purposes 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

A potential subject who meets any of the following criteria will be excluded from participation in this study:

  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:

    • history of severe asthma or other health conditions that may require future use;
    • 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 corticosteroids and oral anti-histamines exempted) or expected use of such during the study period;
    • having one of the following laboratory abnormalities: ferritine \<10 ug/L, transferrine \<2.04 g/L or \<7.5 mmol/L for females or \<8.5 mmol/L for males.
    • 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.
  2. Known to or for use of albendazole. Including co-medication known to interact with albendazole metabolism (e.g. carbamazepine, phenobarbital, phenytoin, cimetidine, theophylline, dexamethasone).
  3. Known type 1 hypersensitivity to amphotericin B or gentamicin.
  4. For female subjects: positive urine pregnancy test at screening.
  5. Positive faecal PCR or Kato-Katz for hookworm at screening, any known history of hookworm infection or treatment for hookworm infection or possible exposure to hookworm in the past.
  6. Being an employee or student of the department of Parasitology of the LUMC.
  7. Current or past scars, tattoos, or other disruptions of skin integrity at the intended site of larval application.
  8. Subjects with planned travel to hookworm-endemic areas with a stay in non-hygienic environment during this trial.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(12)

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.

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.

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.

Hemoglobin (Hb)

The protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. A low level is anaemia, which can cause tiredness and breathlessness. Measured in g/dL or g/L (9 g/dL is 90 g/L).

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.

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
4 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Intervention

    Four healthy hookworm-naive volunteers will be infected with 50 Necator americanus L3 larvae.

    Biological: Necator americanus L3 larvae

Interventions

  • BiologicalNecator americanus L3 larvae

    50 Necator americanus L3 larvae

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Detection of hookworm eggs by faeces microscopy (Kato-Katz) at any week between week 9 to 12 post-infection.

    Detection of hookworm eggs by faeces microscopy (Kato-Katz) at any week between week 9 to 12 post-infection.

    Time frame: 12 weeks

Secondary outcomes

  1. Number of adverse events following single exposure to hookworm larvae

    Number of adverse events following single exposure to hookworm larvae

    Time frame: 2 years

  2. Humoral (antibody) and cellular immunological changes after controlled human hookworm infection

    Humoral (antibody) and cellular immunological changes after controlled human hookworm infection

    Time frame: 2 years

  3. Time to positive faeces test for hookworm as defined by Kato-Katz and qPCR

    Time to positive faeces test for hookworm as defined by Kato-Katz and qPCR

    Time frame: 12 weeks

07

Study locations

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

References and documents

Publications

  • Hoogerwerf MA, Coffeng LE, Brienen EAT, Janse JJ, Langenberg MCC, Kruize YCM, Gootjes C, Manurung MD, Dekker M, Becker L, Erkens MAA, van der Beek MT, Ganesh MS, Feijt C, Winkel BMF, Westra IM, Meij P, Loukas A, Visser LG, de Vlas SJ, Yazdanbakhsh M, van Lieshout L, Roestenberg M. New Insights Into the Kinetics and Variability of Egg Excretion in Controlled Human Hookworm Infections. J Infect Dis. 2019 Aug 9;220(6):1044-1048. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiz218. PubMed 31077279 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reached

Ran from Apr 2017 to primary completion in Aug 2017, 4 months.

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

Registered
Mar 29, 2017
First posted
Apr 24, 2017
StartActual
Apr 1, 2017
Primary completionActual
Aug 15, 2017
CompletionActual
Nov 22, 2021
Last update
Dec 21, 2021
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 Dec 21, 2021, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03126552
Responsible party
Meta Roestenberg (MD, PhD, Leiden University Medical Center) — Principal investigator
First posted
Apr 24, 2017
Start date
Apr 1, 2017
Primary completion
Aug 15, 2017
Completion
Nov 22, 2021
Last update
Dec 21, 2021

Study contacts

Meta Roestenberg, MD, PhD
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 Dec 2021. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

Follow this study

Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.

Sign in to follow

Discussion

Questions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.

Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.

Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.

Start the discussion