MRA With Feraheme in HHT

January 23, 2019 updated by: Justin McWilliams, MD, University of California, Los Angeles

The Use of Ferumoxytol (Feraheme) for Whole Body Magnetic Resonance Angiography in Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is performed with contrast agents to highlight the blood vessels and allow interpretation and diagnosis of blood vessel abnormalities. HHT (Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia) is a disease of blood vessels, and can suffer fatal bleeding if abnormal blood vessels are not detected and treated early. Patients with HHT also require many imaging studies through their lifetimes for surveillance of blood vessels. Many HHT patients also have co-existing iron deficiency anemia from bleeding in their nose and gastrointestinal tract, and receive daily iron therapy.

Ferumoxytol is an alternative MR contrast agent, which is FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved for the treatment of iron deficiency anemia. In addition, it is not associated with the risks to the kidneys of the other agents. The use of ferumoxytol for MR imaging may benefit the patients who do not currently receive imaging due to the contraindications of the conventional contrast agents. It avoids the use of ionizing radiation. Also, the conventional contrast agents are associated with risks. Iodinated contrast in CT is associated with significant risks of kidney damage. Another imaging technique, MR, uses gadolinium based contrast agents. Gadolinium, if used in patients with pre existing kidney dysfunction (defined as GFR < 30ml/min) is associated with the development of another devastating disease called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. As HHT patients will require repeated scans throughout their lifetimes, this study will provide them a safer alternative.

Ten patients from the HHT clinic in whom the use of ferumoxytol as an MR agent is clinically indicated will be invited to participate in this study, which will determine if MR with ferumoxytol is able to detect and characterize vascular malformations in HHT.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The safety of the use of gadolinium based contrast agents in MR is a concern for the FDA, with risks of development of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis and the more recent discovery of accumulation of gadolinium in the brain in patients who have received multiple prior MR scans.

Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) manifests with multiple vascular malformations (VMs) in the skin, mucous membranes and solid organs affecting the spine, brain, liver, gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, and lungs. The disease has an autosomal dominant inheritance and affects 1 in 5000 individuals.

Cerebral vascular malformations occur in 23 % of HHT patients, with a bleeding risk of 0.5% per year. Pulmonary AVMs occur in 15-50% of HHT patients, with a complication rate of 50% ranging from fatal hemoptysis or hemothorax to stroke or cerebral abscess. Liver vascular malformations are present in 32-78% of HHT patients.

The rationale for screening for vascular malformations is detection of a treatable lesion prior to the development of a fatal complication. The international guidelines currently recommend different first line screening tests in each organ: MRI for cerebral VMs, transthoracic echocardiography for pulmonary VMs, endoscopy for gastrointestinal VMs, Doppler US or CT for liver VMs.

Contrast enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (CE-MRA) may play an important role in the simultaneous whole body screening of vascular malformations. The advantages of CE-MRA include visualization of the entire body vasculature in one examination, high spatial resolution comparable to CT, no ionizing radiation and easy of multiplanar reconstructions.

Substituting a conventional gadolinium based contrast agent (GBCA) with an ultra small, super paramagnetic iron oxide agent (USPIO) e.g ferumoxytol, will eliminate any potential risk of developing nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. Since 2009, ferumoxytol ('Feraheme' Advanced Magnetics, Cambridge, MA) has been FDA approved for the treatment of iron deficiency anemia in adult patients with chronic kidney disease. The results of prior studies suggest that ferumoxytol is comparable to standard GBCAs for CE- MRA. Our experience with use of ferumoxytol to date suggests that it will be a superior agent for detection of vascular malformations in a range of vascular territories and that it will be uniquely capable of interrogating multiple territories in one sitting, due to its highly stable intravascular residence time.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

10

Phase

  • Phase 1

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

    • California
      • Los Angeles, California, United States, 90095
        • UCLA

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

18 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Definite diagnosis of HHT (clinically or genetically confirmed)
  • Known or suspected AVMs in the brain, lung, and/or liver
  • Use of ferumoxytol as an MR agent is clinically indicated

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Age <18
  • Unable to have MRI scan
  • Prior adverse reaction to ferumoxytol

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: DIAGNOSTIC
  • Allocation: NA
  • Interventional Model: SINGLE_GROUP
  • Masking: NONE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Feraheme group
All patients enrolled in the study will receive Feraheme MRI/MRA to detect vascular malformations. Ferumoxytol in its standard concentration (510 mg in 17 cc) will be administered IV at 0.15-0.21 mg/kg prior to MRI/MRA.
Other Names:
  • Ferumoxytol

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Presence or absence of AVM
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Size of AVM
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Location of AVM
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Overall image quality score
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Artifact score
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Vessel definition score
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Number of AVM feeding arteries
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Dimension of largest AVM feeding artery
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Number of AVM draining veins
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Dimension of largest AVM draining vein
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate
Dimension of aneurysmal sac
Time Frame: Immediate
Immediate

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Justin McWilliams, MD, University of California, Los Angeles

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

November 1, 2016

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

November 1, 2018

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

November 1, 2018

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 28, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 28, 2016

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

November 30, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

January 25, 2019

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 23, 2019

Last Verified

January 1, 2019

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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