ClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT03466333PICk-UPUpdated Feb 24, 2021

Postnatal Enalapril to Improve Cardiovascular fUnction Following Preterm Pre-eclampsia

A Phase 2 interventional study of Enalapril Maleate and Placebo oral capsule in Cardiovascular Diseases and Pre-Eclampsia Onset Less Than 37 Weeks (Diagnosis), sponsored by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. Completed at 1 site in United Kingdom. Open to female participants aged 16 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2021-02-24.

Sponsored by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust · Phase 2, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Phase 2
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
118
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
16 Years and older
Sex
Female
01

Study summary

This is a double blind randomised controlled feasibility study investigating the effect of postnatal enalapril on cardiovascular function in women who have had preterm pre-eclampsia. Participants will be randomised to 6 months of enalapril or placebo within 3 days of delivery. Cardiovascular function will be assessed using serial echocardiography and biomarkers.

Read the detailed description

Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a condition in pregnancy, identified by a combination of high blood pressure and protein in the urine. It affects 3-5% pregnancies. Women with preterm PE (pPE; delivery before 37 weeks) frequently develop abnormal heart function after pregnancy, which increases their risk of heart disease in later life. Subtle changes in heart function have also been shown to increase the chance of a woman getting PE again in her next pregnancy. Despite this, research to date has focused on the pregnancy and relatively little is known about what happens after pregnancy and whether outcomes can be improved with treatment. sFlt is a protein that prevents blood vessel growth and causes blood vessel constriction. sFlt levels are raised in pPE and correlate with the degree of abnormal heart function. In animal studies, sFlt has been shown to directly cause injury to the heart and it is therefore possible that sFlt mediates pPE associated heart damage. Angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors are commonly used to protect against heart damage following myocardial infarction, but their use has never been tested following pPE.

Objectives:

  1. To characterise abnormal heart function following pPE
  2. To determine if this can be modified by treatment with enalapril.

Study design:

Women who have had pPE, will be randomly allocated to enalapril or placebo from delivery for 6 months. Heart function will be assessed using blood tests and ultrasound scans (echocardiography). This will allow us to learn more about how pPE affects the heart (from the placebo group) and measure the protective effect of enalapril on the heart. Recruitment rates and acceptability of the intervention will also be assessed in this feasibility study.

02

Conditions studied

  • Cardiovascular Diseases
  • Pre-Eclampsia Onset Less Than 37 Weeks (Diagnosis)

Keywords

  • preterm pre-eclampsia
  • cardiovascular dysfunction
03

In context

Cardiovascular Diseases

5,368 studies on the registry are indexed under Cardiovascular Diseases; 939 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 118 is above the median of 100 across 3,084 interventional studies indexed under Cardiovascular Diseases.

Browse Cardiovascular Diseases studies →

Lead sponsor

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust is the lead sponsor of 140 studies on the registry; 27 are open to participants now.

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

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
16 Years and older
Sexes eligible
Female
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

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

  • Diagnosis of pPE in this pregnancy requiring delivery \< 37 weeks gestation: new or worsening hypertension >20 weeks with proteinuria or other features suggestive of PE (abnormal haematological, biochemical parameters, fetal growth restriction (FGR) and/or abnormal sFlt:PlGF (>85)).
  • Biochemical / haematological cut-offs:
  • count \<100 x109/L
  • Alanine amino transferase > 50units/L
  • Creatinine >90mmol/L
  • FGR:
  • Abdominal circumference (AC) / estimated fetal weight (EFW) \<3rd centile
  • Or 2 of the following:
  • AC/EFW \<10th centile
  • AC/EFW crossing centiles by >2 quartiles
  • Cerebroplacental ratio \<5th centile
  • Umbilical artery PI >95th centile
  • At time of randomisation:
  • Postpartum, within 3 days of delivery
  • Aged 18 years or over
  • Able to provide
  • Serum creatinine \<100 mmol/l

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Inability to consent
  • Known cardiac disease
  • to ACE inhibitors
  • Renal artery stenosis
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(3)

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.

Platelets

Blood cells that help blood clot. Too few raises the risk of bleeding and bruising. A usual adult range is about 150–400 × 10⁹/L (150,000–400,000 per µL); each lab has its own reference range.

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.

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
Phase 2
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Quadruple (Participant, Care provider, Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
118 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Investigational medicinal product

    Oral enalapril maleate once daily: 5mg for 1 week, then 10mg for 2 weeks, then 20mg maintenance (for total of 6 months postpartum)

    Drug: Enalapril Maleate

  • Placebo comparator
    Placebo

    Oral placebo once daily for 6 months postpartum

    Drug: Placebo oral capsule

  • No intervention
    Observational arm

    For participants who decline to be take part in the interventional part of the study (decline randomisation to IMP/placebo) however they consent to the observational components of the study (serial echocardiography and biomarkers postpartum).

Interventions

  • Enalapril maleate will be encapsulated; participants will take the drug once a day for 6 months following delivery.

  • DrugPlacebo oral capsule

    The placebo will be encapsulated; participants will take the drug once a day for 6 months following delivery. It will be identical in appearance to the IMP.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Process outcome

    Recruitment rate (number of women eligible, recruited and completing the study per month)

    Time frame: 24 months

  2. Clinical outcome

    Reduction in total vascular resistance (TVR) (from baseline to 6 months post-randomisation following treatment with enalapril, compared with placebo). Whilst TVR is the nominated primary endpoint for this feasibility study, the choice of primary outcome for the definitive trial remains uncertain.

    Time frame: 32 months

Secondary outcomes

  1. Process outcome

    Acceptability of the intervention to postnatal women.

    Time frame: 32 months

  2. Clinical outcome (echocardiography measures)

    A change in other parameters of cardiac function (including: E/E' ratio, tricuspid valve regurgitation, left atrial volume index (LAVi), left ventricular function (LVEF), cardiac output (CO), stroke volume (SV), relative wall thickness (RWT), left ventricular mass index (LVMi), concentric/eccentric remodelling, global longitudinal strain (GLS), left ventricular (LV) basal strain, LV apical strain)

    Time frame: 32 months

  3. Clinical outcome (biomarkers)

    A change in biomarkers (high sensitivity troponin (hs-cTnT), placental growth factor (PlGF), soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase-1 (sFlt1), N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP), nitric oxide end products (NOx).

    Time frame: 32 months

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
    Manchester, Greater Manchester M13 9WL, United Kingdom
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Ormesher L, Higson S, Luckie M, Roberts SA, Glossop H, Trafford A, Cottrell E, Johnstone ED, Myers JE. Postnatal Enalapril to Improve Cardiovascular Function Following Preterm Preeclampsia (PICk-UP):: A Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Feasibility Trial. Hypertension. 2020 Dec;76(6):1828-1837. doi: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.15875. Epub 2020 Oct 5. PubMed 33012200 ↗
09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Ran from Sep 2018 to primary completion in Sep 2020, 24 months.

Of 60 non-industry phase 2 interventional studies under Cardiovascular Diseases, half reached primary completion within 38 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 23 and three quarters within 62. This study's 24 months is below that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 84 studies reached it within 28 months; a quarter within 16 and three quarters within 59.

Cardiovascular Diseases covers many different conditions, not one, so the studies compared here vary widely. Read these figures as a rough guide.

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

Registered
Mar 8, 2018
First posted
Mar 15, 2018
StartActual
Sep 5, 2018
Primary completionActual
Sep 11, 2020
CompletionActual
Sep 11, 2020
Last update
Feb 24, 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 Feb 24, 2021, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03466333
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Mar 15, 2018
Start date
Sep 5, 2018
Primary completion
Sep 11, 2020
Completion
Sep 11, 2020
Last update
Feb 24, 2021

Study contacts

Jenny Dr Myers, MBBS PhD
principal investigator · The University of Manchester

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
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 Feb 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.

Studies of the drug tested here: Enalapril

Start the discussion