ClinicalTrials.gg
RecruitingNCT07518810ENMSAUpdated Oct 16, 2026

Efficacy and Safety of Butylphthalide in the Treatment of Multiple System Atrophy

A Phase 2/3 interventional study of 3-N-butylphthalide in Multiple System Atrophy, sponsored by Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine. Recruiting at 7 sites in China. Open to participants aged 30 Years to 80 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-10-16.

Sponsored by Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine · Phase 2/3, Interventional, and Treatment

From the registry’s dates

  • Started Aug 2026; still recruiting 2 months later.
Updated Oct 16, 2026Now RecruitingSite recruiting status changed+3 moreGo to Updates ↓
Phase
Phase 2/3
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
150
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
30 Years to 80 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

The present study aims to conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy and safety of 3-n-Butylphthalide (NBP) in improving symptoms in patients with Multiple System Atrophy (MSA). The main questions it aims to answer are:

  1. To evaluate whether NBP soft capsules, compared with placebo, alleviates the major clinical symptoms in patients with MSA.
  2. Whether NBP application is safe to treat patients with MSA. In this trial, NBP will be compared with placebo (similar soft capsule without effective component of NBP) to demonstrate if NBP can alleviates MSA symptoms

Participants of ENMSA will:

  1. Take NBP or Placebo three times a day for 6 months
  2. Be served with clinical visit four times for follow-up and tests
  3. Keep a diary of drug application and symptom changes
02

Conditions studied

  • Multiple System Atrophy

Keywords

  • multiple system atrophy
  • 3-n-butylphthalide
03

In context

Multiple System Atrophy

207 studies on the registry are indexed under Multiple System Atrophy; 73 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 150 is above the median of 41 across 134 interventional studies indexed under Multiple System Atrophy.

Browse Multiple System Atrophy studies →

Lead sponsor

Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine is the lead sponsor of 99 studies on the registry; 67 are open to participants now.

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

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
30 Years to 80 Years
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. Meet a diagnosis for "clinically established MSA" according to the Movement Disorder Society (MDS) diagnostic criteria for multiple system atrophy revised in 2022, as assessed by a neurologist;
  2. Patients aged between 30 and 80 years, within 5 years since the initial diagnosis of MSA, and with a greater than 3 years;
  3. Patients are not entirely dependent on a wheelchair or bedridden and are capable of cooperating with necessary assessments and examinations, including scale evaluations, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and PET-CT scans;
  4. Patients must have been on a stable medication regimen (for a duration of at least one month) prior to the trial, which may include drugs for anti-Parkinson, anti-autonomic dysfunction, anti-anxiety/depression agents, and sleep aids

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  1. Patients with a diagnosis confirmed by PET-CT or revised during follow-up to other diseases, such as idiopathic Parkinson's disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration, dementia with Lewy bodies, or secondary parkinsonian syndromes.
  2. Patients with a history of other major neurological disorders, including ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage, epilepsy, encephalitis, or central nervous system demyelinating diseases;
  3. Patients with a history of psychiatric disorders that may involve psychotic symptoms, such as schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, or dissociative -conversion disorders.
  4. Patients with severe hepatic or renal impairment ( [ALT] or aspartate aminotransferase [AST] levels >2 xULN; Estimated \<30 mL/min;
  5. Patients with a heamorrhage event within the past 3 months or a high bleeding risk;
  6. Patients with a history of significant craniocerebral trauma or surgery;
  7. Patients with severe cognitive impairment ( [MMSE] score \<24);
  8. Patients with a history of or diseases;
  9. Patients with dysphagia due to severe medullary dysfunction or esophageal disorders, or those unable to comply with medication administration for other reasons;
  10. Patients who are pregnant, lactating, or planning a pregnancy within the next year.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(6)

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.

Life expectancy

The study doctor’s estimate of how long someone is likely to live. Criteria use it so that people can stay in the study long enough for it to answer its question.

ALT and AST (liver enzymes)

Two enzymes measured in a routine blood test of the liver. Higher levels can mean the liver is under strain or damaged. SGPT and SGOT are older names for ALT and AST.

Criteria usually give a limit as a multiple of the upper limit of normal (ULN), often higher when cancer has spread to the liver.

Creatinine clearance (CrCl)

How quickly the kidneys clear creatinine, a waste product, from the blood. A study may estimate it from a blood test with age, weight and sex (often by the Cockcroft–Gault formula), or measure it using blood and urine collected over a set time. Given in mL/min; higher is better.

MMSE and MoCA

Short tests of memory and thinking, each scored out of 30. Lower scores suggest more difficulty; criteria give a range, either to include people with memory problems or to leave them out.

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.

Autoimmune disease

A condition in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues, such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, type 1 diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease.

Immunotherapy studies often leave out active autoimmune disease, and some name exceptions, such as thyroid disease on replacement hormone. Check the exceptions this study lists.

05

Study design

Phase
Phase 2 / Phase 3
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Quadruple (Participant, Care provider, Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
150 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    NBP treatment group

    Participants in the NBP treatment group will receive NBP soft capsules (dosage form: 100 mg/capsule), two capsules per dose, three times daily (total daily dose of 600 mg). The whole treatment duration is six months, during which all patients will maintain their original medication unchanged.

    Drug: 3-N-butylphthalide

  • Placebo comparator
    Placebo control group

    Participants in the Placebo control group will receive two Placebo soft capsules each time, three times daily (total daily dose of 600 mg). The whole application duration is six months, during which all patients will maintain their original medication unchanged.

    Drug: 3-N-butylphthalide

Interventions

  • 3-n-Butylphthalide (NBP), also known as celery seed oil extract, is a lipid-soluble compound isolated from celery seeds. NBP was approved by the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) in 2002 for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke. NBP has demonstrated significant improvement in motor deficits and exhibited neuroprotective effects in animal models of various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). For NBP used in ENMSA trial, its dosage form is soft capsule, containing 100mg NBP per capsule. Application frequency will be three times a day, 2 capsules each time.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Main symptom control of MSA

    Use sum score Movement Disorder Society-Unified Multiple System Atrophy Rating Scale(MDS-UMSARS; score range: 0-104; higher score means worse symptoms of MSA) part I+II to evaluate the effectiveness of main symptom control of MSA

    Time frame: Baseline; 1st, 3rd, 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

Secondary outcomes

  1. Overall symptom control of MSA

    Use sub score of Movement Disorder Society-Unified Multiple System Atrophy Rating Scale(MDS-UMSARS; score range: 0-104; higher score means worse symptoms of MSA) to evaluate the overall effectiveness of main symptom control of MSA

    Time frame: Baseline; 1st, 3rd, 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

  2. Autonomic function of MSA

    Use Composite Autonomic Symptom Score 31 (COMPASS-31; score range: 0-100; higher score means worse autonomic symptoms of MSA) scale to evaluate autonomic symptoms of MSA

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

  3. Depressive symptom of MSA

    Use Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD; score range: 0-52; higher score means worse depressive symptoms of MSA) scale to evaluate depressive symptom of MSA

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

  4. Cognitive function of MSA

    Use Mini-mental State Examination scale (MMSE; score range: 0-30; higher score means better cognitive function of MSA patients) to evaluate cognitive symptoms of MSA

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

  5. Life quality of MSA

    Use Multiple System Atrophy-Quality of Life (MSA-QoL; score range: 0-160; higher score means worse life quality of MSA) scale to evaluate life quality of MSA patients

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

  6. Safety of Butylphthalide application in MSA patients

    Monitoring the incidence of AE/SAE and MSA specific mortality rate during the trial

    Time frame: through study completion, an average of 1 year

  7. Anxiety symptoms of MSA

    Use Hamilton Anxiety scale (HAMA; score range: 0-56; higher score means worse anxiety symptoms of MSA) to evaluate anxiety symptoms of MSA

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

  8. Advanced Cognitive function of MSA

    Use Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA; score range: 0-30; higher score means better cognitive function of MSA) to evaluate cognitive symptoms of MSA

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th, 12th month after intervention initiation

Other outcomes

  1. α-Syn aggregates

    Use blood sample collected from participents to evalute the α-Syn aggregates in blood

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th month after intervention initiation

  2. Plasma Neuro-filament light chain

    Use plasma sample collected from participents to evalute the NfL concentration in MSA patients

    Time frame: Baseline; 6th month after intervention initiation

07

Study locations

4 of 7 sites recruiting
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Yes — Share IPD within 1 year after trail completion by public study protocol, CRF,Email Contact, etc.

Supporting information: Study protocol, Statistical analysis plan, Informed consent form, Clinical study report, Analytic code

Time frame: 1 year after trial completion

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

1 registry update since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedDate before it movedWhere the date was before it moved

Started Aug 2026 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Apr 2027, 7 months after the start.

Start moved once since we started tracking on Sep 25, 2026: Apr 2026 → Aug 2026, on Oct 16, 2026.

Earlier changes are on the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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

Registered
Mar 26, 2026
First posted
Apr 9, 2026
StartActual
Aug 27, 2026was Apr 2026
Primary completionEst.
Apr 10, 2027
CompletionEst.
Oct 10, 2027
Last update
Oct 16, 2026
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.
Status
Not yet recruiting→Recruiting
changed Oct 16, 2026
Sites
1 site added. 6 sites changed recruiting status (3 now not yet recruiting, 3 now recruiting)
Show 6 sites
  • The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University · Nanning, Chinano status→Not yet recruiting
  • HuZhou Central Hospital · Huzhou, Chinano status→Recruiting
  • The Second Hospital of Jiaxing · Jiaxing, Chinano status→Recruiting
  • Ningbo Second Hospital · Ningbo, Chinano status→Recruiting
  • Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province · Taizhou, Chinano status→Not yet recruiting
  • Affiliated Beijing Chaoyang Hospital of Capital Medical University · Beijing, Chinano status→Not yet recruiting
Show site
  • The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine · Hangzhou, China
Oct 16, 2026
Start date
Apr 10, 2026→Aug 27, 2026 (actual)
Oct 16, 2026
Sponsor
Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University→Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine
Oct 16, 2026
Show all 1 update
  1. Oct 16, 2026
    Not yet recruiting→Recruiting
    1 site added. 6 sites changed recruiting status (3 now not yet recruiting, 3 now recruiting)
    Show 6 sites
    • The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University · Nanning, Chinano status→Not yet recruiting
    • HuZhou Central Hospital · Huzhou, Chinano status→Recruiting
    • The Second Hospital of Jiaxing · Jiaxing, Chinano status→Recruiting
    • Ningbo Second Hospital · Ningbo, Chinano status→Recruiting
    • Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province · Taizhou, Chinano status→Not yet recruiting
    • Affiliated Beijing Chaoyang Hospital of Capital Medical University · Beijing, Chinano status→Not yet recruiting
    Show site
    • The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine · Hangzhou, China
    Start date Apr 10, 2026→Aug 27, 2026 (now actual)
    Sponsor Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University→Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine
    + 1 other change: identifiers

From the registry record's own update history. This site started tracking changes on Sep 25, 2026; for anything earlier, see the record history on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT07518810
Lead sponsor
Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine
Collaborators
The Second Affiliated Hospital of Jiaxing University, Beijing Chao Yang Hospital, Huzhou Central Hospital, Taizhou Hospital of Zhejiang Province affiliated to Wenzhou Medical University, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Ningbo No.2 Hospital
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Apr 9, 2026
Start date
Aug 27, 2026
Primary completion
Apr 10, 2027 (estimated)
Completion
Oct 10, 2027 (estimated)
Last update
Oct 16, 2026

Study contacts

Jiali Pu, MD
Contact
jialipu@zju.edu.cn
+86 13989468062
Jiali Pu, MD
principal investigator · 2nd Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, China

Oversight

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

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