Improving Medication-taking After Liver Transplant (I-AM)

Intervention After MALT (I-AM): Feasibility of Improving Adherence Among Pediatric and Adult Cardiac Transplant Patients Using a Telemetric Intervention

The specific aim is to pilot-test our developed intervention manual's ability to improve patients' adherence to medications and medical outcomes (rejection rate, liver enzyme levels) in participating centers.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Tacrolimus; Nonadherence; Pediatric Liver Transplant Recipients
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Telemetric

Detailed Description

Nonadherence (not taking the medications as prescribed) is the most common cause of late acute rejection in children who have had a liver transplant, and thus is associated with graft loss, increased expenditures on care, and ultimately death. Researchers in this application developed a biomarker to identify nonadherence, calculating the standard deviation (SD) of consecutive immunosuppressant blood levels for each patient to capture the degree of variability between individual levels (higher SD = less consistent levels). By applying a threshold, this marker identifies nonadherent patients. A consortium of transplant centers is currently testing this marker through the MALT (Medication Adherence in children who had a Liver Transplant) study. MALT investigators now propose to take advantage of this existing collaboration to pilot-test an intervention to improve adherence in patients who are identified by this marker.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 7
• Phase: Phase 1

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Los Angeles, California, United States, 90095
      • UCLA Mattell Children's Hospital
  • Ohio
    • Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, 45229
      • Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
  • Pennsylvania
    • Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, 15224
      • Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 11 years to 19 years (ADULT, CHILD)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• The patient is between 11-19 years of age at enrollment.
• Guardian's consent, child assent (in accordance with each institution's IRB policies).
• The patient is prescribed tacrolimus (either brand or generic formulation).
• The patient has been seen in the enrolling center's clinic at least once in the last two years.
• The patient's SD of tacrolimus was > 2.0 in the year prior to enrollment, with at least 3 levels present to make this determination.
• The patient and at least one guardian speaks English or Spanish at a level that allows her / him to understand the study procedures and consent to the study.

Exclusion Criteria:

• The patient received a liver transplant less than 1 year prior to enrollment.
• The patient has had more than one transplant (including marrow replacement).
• The patient has had biopsy-proven rejection within the past six months.
• The patient has been diagnosed with Hepatitis C.
• The treating physician has instructed the patient not to obtain tacrolimus levels for at least one year in the past year.
• The guardian or child (in a developmentally-appropriate manner) do not understand the study procedures. This will be verified by asking both guardian and child to repeat the study procedures.
• The patient is only seen for consultation - most or all of the child's routine care is provided at another center (or in a community clinic).
• Either the patient or the guardian is actively psychotic or severely disoriented due to any cause, including hepatic encephalopathy (temporary exclusion) or severely mentally retarded as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV).
• The patient is not medically stable or is hospitalized.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
• Allocation: NA
• Interventional Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Masking: NONE

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Telemetric; Enrolled patients will be followed for 12 months during which they will receive the study telemetry intervention.	Behavioral: Telemetric; A manualized behavioral management approach focusing on avoidance and addressing barriers to adherence, delivered via telephone or internet chat applications.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Adherence	Change in Adherence at one year compared to at baseline measured via the Standard Deviation of Tacrolimus levels obtained	at baseline and one year

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Incidence of rejection	Change in Incidence of rejection compared at one year to baseline	at baseline and at one year
Liver Enzyme Levels		at baseline
Liver Enzyme Levels		at one year
Feasibility	Participation in the intervention (receive all of the remote interactions called for in the manual, presented as a percentage of received / offered during the intervention active phase, 1 year)	at one year

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
• Collaborators: University of California, Los Angeles; University of Pittsburgh; Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati; The Emmes Company, LLC

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: August 1, 2014
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): May 1, 2016
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): May 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: October 8, 2013
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: October 8, 2013
• First Posted (ESTIMATE): October 10, 2013

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE): July 1, 2016
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 30, 2016
• Last Verified: June 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: adherence; compliance; liver transplantation; noncompliance; nonadherence
• Other Study ID Numbers: GCO 13-0223