Clinical trial NCT03814096: Point-Of-Care Testing for Congenital Syphilis in Mothers and Newborns
Official title: Point-Of-Care Testing for Congenital Syphilis in Mothers and Newborns: A Proof of Concept Study
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: WITHDRAWN
Phase: NA
Conditions: Maternal Syphilis During Pregnancy - Baby Not Yet Delivered
Congenital Syphilis
Keywords: Syphilis, prenatal screening, SHC, point-of-care test
Lead sponsor: Stanford University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Santa Clara Valley Medical Center
First posted: 2019-01-23
Enrollment: 0
Sex: FEMALE
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: DIAGNOSTIC

Brief summary: A dramatic rise in syphilis has been recently reported in the US between 2000-2017, which was followed also by a dramatic rise in congenital syphilis (CS). In 2017 there were 918 CS cases reported in the United States, including 64 syphilitic stillbirths. In 2017, California (CA) had one of the highest syphilis rates among women and this was accompanied by a dramatic increase in CS cases. Approximately 40% of CS cases in the United States occurred from maternal infections acquired late in gestation, missed by current-early gestation only-prenatal screening. More frequent prenatal screening late in gestation is urgently needed. However, cost considerations and operational logistic limitations preclude implementation even in high risk regions. There is an urgent need for widespread implementation of more frequent prenatal screening using alternative cost-saving screening approaches. The Syphilis-Health-Check (SHC) point-of-care (POC) test is a well validated POC-test that is already commercially available in the US, is approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-waived. POC prenatal syphilis screening late in gestation using a well validated POC-test (in addition to the standard early gestation-screening with laboratory-based tests) could provide a cost-saving complementary alternative that could benefit patients, mitigate the higher cost associated with more frequent testing, overcome operational limitations and contribute to the elimination of CS. Moreover, POC-neonatal and placental screening could provide an additional complementary safeguard approach to decrease missed/delayed CS diagnoses.

Detailed description: Given the dramatic rise in syphilis that has been recently reported in the United States in the recent years (between 2000-2017) there is an urgent need for widespread implementation of more frequent prenatal syphilis screening using alternative cost-saving screening approaches. The Syphilis-Health-Check (SHC) point-of-care (POC) test is a well validated POC-test that is already commercially available in the United States, is approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA)-waived. Hypotheses: a) Point-Of-Care (POC) prenatal syphilis screening late in gestation using a well validated POC-test (in addition to the standard early gestation-screening with lab-based tests) could provide a cost-saving complementary alternative that could benefit patients, mitigate the higher cost associated with the need for more frequent syphilis screening, overcome operational limitations and contribute to the elimination of CS. b) POC-neonatal screening can provide additional complementary safeguard approach to decrease missed/delayed CS diagnoses. POC-neonatal syphilis screening can be used as a rapid screening tool to capture/probe all neonatal cases who would need immediate medical attention and further investigation and workup to rule out (or rule-in accordingly) suspected/probable CS.

Specific Aim 1: Validate the diagnostic accuracy of SHC-POC-test in late gestation (24-28 weeks): a) against standard laboratory based syphilis treponemal tests (TT)/and non-treponemal tests (NTT) in prenatal-care clinic settings and b) also against clinical diagnoses of maternal syphilis requiring treatment during gestation (co-primary endpoint). Specific aim 2: Test the feasibility of POC-prenatal screening (secondary endpoint) and efficacy of POC-prenatal screening to decrease the incidence of CS in a high risk region, through prompt diagnosis (and treatment accordingly) of maternal syphilis cases that need immediate treatment (to prevent mother-to -child transmission) (co-primary endpoint). Specific Aim 3: Evaluate the feasibility of POC-neonatal screening and POC-placental screening and the concordance of the results between late gestation maternal, neonatal and placental POC-test results. (Proof of concept; secondary endpoints).

Study design: (a) Prospective cohort study in the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC), San Jose, CA over a 3 yr study period with enrollment of pregnant women at 24-28 weeks (wks) gestational age (GA), presenting for their routine clinic visit at 24-28 wks for their glucose tolerance test (GTT). SCVMC recently introduced as a new standard of care rescreening for syphilis of all pregnant women at 24-28 wks with TT/NTTs, bundled to the venipuncture for the Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT). During this clinic visit, the syphilis POC-testing will be done via a fingerstick in clinic, while the standard lab-based syphilis screening will be done via venipuncture in the lab (as part of the new standard of care). (b) Proof-of-concept prospective cohort substudy to test the feasibility of neonatal POC-testing (whole-blood collected via heel stick, bundled with the routine newborn screening for inborn errors of metabolism at 24-48 hours of life) and placental-POC-testing.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Consenting adult pregnant women between 24-28 weeks GA seen at Obstetrics/Gynecology (OB/GYN) prenatal-care clinics in Santa Clara Valley Medical Center San Jose CA, at the time of their routine clinic visit at 24-28 weeks GA for their routine glucose-tolerance-test (GTT) prenatal screening.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Non-adult pregnant patients \<18 years of age and pregnant women not between 24-28 weeks gestational age at the time of the clinic visit.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Count of pregnant women with concordant test results between the SHC-POC test and the TT/NTT test at 24-28 weeks gestational age, as a measure of validation of the diagnostic accuracy of the SHC-POC-test
timeFrame: Between 24-28 weeks gestational age of study participants
measure: Count of pregnant women with concordant test results between the SHC-POC test and maternal syphilis diagnosis at 24-28 weeks gestational age requiring treatment during gestation, as a measure of validation of the diagnostic accuracy of the SHC-POC test
timeFrame: Between 24-28 weeks gestational age of study participants
measure: Incidence of Congenital Syphilis (N of congenital Syphilis cases/ N of total births), as a measure of efficacy of POC-prenatal syphilis screening at 24-28 weeks gestational age
timeFrame: At birth and up to 3 months of age of offsprings of study participants
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Count of concordant SHC-POC-test results between maternal, placental and neonatal SHC-POC-testing.
timeFrame: At 24-28 weeks gestational age of study participants (for maternal POC-test results); During Delivery (for placental POC-test results) and at birth and up to 3 months of age of offsprings of study participants (for neonatal POC-test results)
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: San Jose
country: United States
facility: Santa Clara Valley Medical Center; Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Pediatrics
state: California
city: Stanford
country: United States
facility: Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Infectious Diseases
state: California
Study officials:
affiliation: Stanford University
name: Despina G. Contopoulos-Ioannidis, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: