Uric Acid in Essential Hypertension in Children

Randomized Double-blinded, Placebo-controlled, Cross-over Trial of Allopurinol for the Treatment of Newly Diagnosed Essential Hypertension in Adolescents

The study is a randomized, double-blinded, placebo controlled, crossover trial of allopurinol for the treatment of children with newly diagnosed essential hypertension.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The study will be a double-blinded crossover trial. We will recruit 40 children between the ages of 12 and 18 years, from the pediatric renal and hypertension programs at Texas Children's Hospital. The study consists of four phases, a screening phase a treatment phase, an interim washout phase and a crossover phase.

The screening phase will last between 1 and 2 weeks. Patients will be provided with a digital blood pressure monitor with an appropriately sized cuff and be instructed to perform daily blood pressure measurements and keep a blood pressure log. This will detect severe hypertension that needs immediate attention and identify patients or families in which compliance problems likely to compromise data collection. Blood tests will be done to determine eligibility based on clinical laboratory parameters and 10ml of blood will be sent to the research laboratory for measurement of erythropoetin, ADMA, MCP-1 and possibly other modulators of vascular tone. Girls who are post-menarche will have a urine or serum pregnancy test. Prior to the initiation of any study procedures, informed consent and child assent (if appropriate) will be obtained from the participant and parents. Immediately prior to the initiation of the treatment or placebo phase 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM #1) will be performed. Urinary nitrates and protein to creatinine ratio will be measured as surrogates for NOS activation and ongoing renal damage. At the end of the screening phase, eligible patients will be randomly assigned to either placebo or allopurinol for the active phase. Children will receive the other during the crossover phase. The purpose of this blinding is to remove either participant or investigator bias from the acquisition of the data.

Active Phase: The active phase will last six weeks and include a clinic visit on the first day of the phase, laboratory testing between day 4 and 7, and telephone contact halfway through the phase. At the clinic visit, patients will receive their study medication (allopurinol or placebo) in a bottle prepared by the investigational pharmacy. Subjects on allopurinol will receive 10 mg/kg divided bid (maximum of 400mg). Laboratory tests will be performed 4 to 7 days after starting the medication to screen for hepatic or bone marrow toxicity (AST, ALT, CBC) and serum uric acid. Evidence for toxicity will cause un-blinding and withdrawal from the study. The families will also be instructed to continue the daily blood pressure log started in the screening phase. Twenty-four-hour ABPM and end of phase laboratory tests including, hemoglobin, serum uric acid, erythropoetin, ADMA, MCP-1 and urinary nitrates will be performed at the conclusion of the active phase, prior to discontinuing the study medication for the washout phase.

Washout Phase: Upon completion of the ABPM at the end of the active phase, the study medication will be discontinued. The families will continue the home BP logs. The washout phase will end when either the child meets criteria for hypertension or two weeks have elapsed since completion of the previous phase.

Crossover Phase: The crossover phase will identical in procedures to the active phase except that the medication will be that which was not previously received.

Follow-up visit: Upon completion of both arms the subjects will have a final clinic visit. The laboratory tests will be repeated and if the third ABPM is not complete it will be initiated. Conventional antihypertensive therapy will be discussed and initiated if appropriate. Routine follow up will be established for management of the child's hypertension and other medical problems.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

30

Phase

  • Phase 2

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Texas
      • Houston, Texas, United States, 77030
        • Texas Children's Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

12 years to 18 years (Child, Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Males or females 12 to 18 years in age.

SBP or DBP greater than 95th percentile for age, gender and height

Diagnosis of primary hypertension after initial workup

No pharmacological therapy for hypertension in the past 12 months

Females must have a negative urine pregnancy test.

Parental or guardian consent and child subject assent

Exclusion Criteria:

Severe or poorly controlled hypertension as defined by SBP or DBP more than 20mmHg >95th percentile for age, gender and height or a history of hypertensive encephalopathy

Identified cause of secondary hypertension Renal transplant

Taking a calcineurin inhibitor, azathioprine or another nucleoside analogue medication (These medications have potentially serious drug interactions with Allopurinol.)

Currently receiving antihypertensive medication(s) or diuretic(s)

Laboratory abnormalities that indicate clinically significant hematologic, hepatobiliary or renal disease (These abnormalities would be expected to alter drug metabolism and increase the likelihood of medication side effects.):

Schwartz Formula GFR less than 60ml/min/1.73m2, AST/SGOT greater than 2 times the upper limit of normal* ALT/SGPT greater than 2 times the upper limit of normal* Total or direct bilirubin more than 2 times the upper limit of normal* Hemoglobin less than 9 gm/dl WBC less than 3.000/mm3 Platelet count less than 100,000/mm3 *age-adjusted normal range

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Crossover Assignment
  • Masking: Triple

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Placebo Comparator: Placebo
Experimental: Allopurinol
Hypertensive children received both placebo and allopurinol in a cross over design.
Allopurinol adminsitered one 200mg capsule by mouth twice daily. Placebo capsule once daily during crossover

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Ambulatory BP
Time Frame: three months
three months
Casual Blood Pressure
Time Frame: three months
three months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
plasma renin activity
Time Frame: three months
three months
Systemic vascular resistance
Time Frame: three months
three months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Collaborators

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Daniel I. Feig, MD, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

September 1, 2004

Primary Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2007

Study Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2007

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

February 6, 2006

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 6, 2006

First Posted (Estimate)

February 7, 2006

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

September 14, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 12, 2017

Last Verified

September 1, 2017

More Information

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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