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CompletedNCT03854929CIPAZUpdated Jun 7, 2023

Ciprofloxacin Versus Azithromycin for Children Hospitalised With Dysentery

A Phase 4 interventional study of Ciprofloxacin and Azithromycin in Dysentery, Shigella, Shigellosis and Diarrhea, sponsored by Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam. Completed at 1 site in Vietnam. Open to participants aged 6 Months to 60 Months. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2023-06-07.

Sponsored by Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam · Phase 4, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Phase 4
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
364
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
6 Months to 60 Months
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The purpose of this study is to assess the efficacy of 3 days of azithromycin (AZI) compared to 3 days of ciprofloxacin (CIP) (standard-of-care) for the treatment of children hospitalised with dysentery in Ho Chi Minh City.

Read the detailed description

Antimicrobial resistance is a well-established international healthcare crisis and children with diarrhoeal infections represent a significant proportion of the global infectious disease burden. With the increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance observed in the organisms associated with children presenting with dysentery in Vietnam and the investigator's capacity to demonstrate international transmission events, new data regarding alternative treatment options such as azithromycin, in particular for the new highly-antimicrobial resistant S. sonnei, are urgently needed.

The study team will perform a phase IV open label randomised controlled trial to compare the efficacy of AZI to CIP (standard-of-care) for the treatment of children hospitalised with dysentery in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Children aged 6 to 60 months presenting to the participating hospital with symptoms/signs of dysentery (diarrhoea with blood and/or mucus accompanied by 1 or more of: fever ≥37.8°C, abdominal pain and /or tenesmus) within the previous 72 hours will be enrolled to the study.

After enrolment, participants will be managed according to WHO and local algorithms for children with bloody diarrhoea. In addition, after providing a stool sample, children will be randomly allocated to receive CIP 15mg/kg body weight/ twice daily or AZI 10mg/kg body weight/ daily for 3 days. After enrolment, children will be reviewed for clinical and microbiological response to treatment.

02

Conditions studied

  • Dysentery, Shigella
  • Shigellosis
  • Diarrhea

Keywords

  • Azithromycin
  • Ciprofloxacin
  • Children
  • Dysentery
  • Vietnam
03

In context

Dysentery, Bacillary

61 studies on the registry are indexed under Dysentery, Bacillary; 6 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 364 is above the median of 76 across 54 interventional studies indexed under Dysentery, Bacillary.

Browse Dysentery, Bacillary studies →

Lead sponsor

Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam is the lead sponsor of 37 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
6 Months to 60 Months
Sexes eligible
All
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

  1. Male or female aged 6 months to 60 months at time of hospital presentation.
  2. Have symptoms and/or signs of dysentery, specifically passing stools containing mucus and/or blood with/without abdominal pain, tenesmus or fever (≥37.8˚C).
  3. Be eligible for treatment with oral medication in the opinion of the admitting physician (i.e. no clinical requirement for parenteral treatment on admission).
  4. Be within 72 hours of the onset of signs/symptoms.
  5. Have a parent/guardian present at admission who can provide written .

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Those known to have specific medical (patients with known prolongation of the , congenital long QT syndrome)/surgical conditions which may affect disease severity/presentation or response to treatment (e.g. affecting antimicrobial absorption), including:

    1. gastrointestinal abnormalities, including short bowel syndrome, chronic (inflammatory or irritable) bowel disease.
    2. inherited or acquired immune system deficiency rendering the patient , including chronic/long-term treatment or other immunosuppressive treatment
  2. Presentation with severe infection requiring parenteral antimicrobial treatment, including shock jaundice, extensive gastrointestinal bleeding, convulsion , drowsiness or coma, reduced or less movement when stimulated, tachypnea > 60 times per minute, grunting, chest retraction, refuse to suck.
  3. Known to any of the trial drugs (CIP or AZI).
  4. Coexisting infection requiring other or additional antimicrobials to be prescribed/ administered.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(5)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 4
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
364 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Active comparator
    Ciprofloxacin

    Each sachet CIPROFLOXACIN of 3g powder contains: 250mg Ciprofloxacin HCl, dissolved in water, dosed to 15mg/kg body weight /twice daily (apart 12 hours)/ 3 days.

    Drug: Ciprofloxacin

  • Experimental
    Azithromycin

    Each sachet AZICINE of 1.5 g powder contains: 250mg of Azithromycin dihydrate, dissolved in warm water, dosed to 10mg/kg body weight /daily/ 3 days

    Drug: Azithromycin

Interventions

  • Fluoroquinolone, ATC code: J01MA02 DNA-gyrase and topoisomerase IV inhibitor

  • Macrolide, ATC code: J01FA10 Binds to ribosomal 50S sub-unit inhibiting translocation of peptides thereby suppressing bacterial protein synthesis.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Assess the Clinical treatment failure between treatment groups.

    Clinical treatment failure including: fever ≥38.0°C or the persistence of signs or symptoms of the infection (vomiting, abdominal pain, passing loose stools more than 3 times per 24 hours ( with blood and mucus, blood or mucus, without both))

    Time frame: after 120 hours of start of either treatment.

  2. Assess the microbiological treatment failure between treatment groups.

    The microbiological treatment failure is assessed by positive PCR stool with original pathogen after day 3 of treatment.

    Time frame: after 72 hours of start of either treatment.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Measure differences in symptom duration between treatment groups by stratifying stool PCR.

    Compare the duration of symptom ( from the onset to disappear) between the two groups. The duration of symptom will be stratified by stool PCR.

    Time frame: 120 hours of start of either treatment.

  2. Measure differences in symptom duration between treatment groups by stratifying stool culture.

    Compare the duration of symptom ( from the onset to disappear) between the two groups. The duration of symptom will be stratified by stool culture.

    Time frame: 120 hours of start of either treatment.

  3. Assess the time to resolution of objective markers of infection and inflammation, including cessation of culture- and PCR-confirmed Shigella shedding, normalization of blood total white cell count, C-reactive protein and stool lipocalin

    Time to cessation of Shigella shedding in stool (PCR).

    Time frame: at enrolment, day 7th (+3 days) and day 28th (+3 days)

  4. Assess the rates of adverse events associated with exposure to the antimicrobial agents used.

    Adverse effects of antimicrobial treatment, including (i) life-threatening events, (ii) events requiring drug discontinuation, (iii) mild adverse events that require additional medication to be used but not resulting in drug discontinuation.

    Time frame: at enrolment, during 31 days after enrolment

  5. Assess the effects of antimicrobial exposure on the host microbiome, including diversity and abundance of specific bacterial species in stool.

    The extend of intestinal microbial colonisation will be assessed by analyses of stool sample collected at enrolment, day 7th (+3 days) and day 28th (+3 days)

    Time frame: at enrolment, day 7th (+3 days) and day 28th (+3 days).

07

Study locations

1 site
  • Children's Hospital 2
    Ho Chi Minh City, 70000, Vietnam
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reached

Ran from Dec 2019 to primary completion in Feb 2021, 13 months.

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

Registered
Feb 21, 2019
First posted
Feb 26, 2019
StartActual
Dec 11, 2019
Primary completionActual
Feb 6, 2021
CompletionActual
Jul 12, 2022
Last update
Jun 7, 2023
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 Jun 7, 2023, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03854929
Lead sponsor
Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam
Collaborators
Number 2 Children's Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, University of Liverpool
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Feb 26, 2019
Start date
Dec 11, 2019
Primary completion
Feb 6, 2021
Completion
Jul 12, 2022
Last update
Jun 7, 2023

Study contacts

Stephen Stephen, Professor
principal investigator · Oxford University Clinical Research Unit

Oversight

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

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This study is completed, as verified in Jun 2023. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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Discussion

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Studies of the drug tested here: Azithromycin

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