Conditions: Skin Ulcers Sickle Cell Anemia
Keywords: dermatologic disorders genetic diseases and dysmorphic syndromes hematologic disorders rare disease sickle cell anemia skin ulcers thalassemia major
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 23
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
OBJECTIVES: I. Compare the efficacy of local care alone vs local care plus arginine butyrate in terms of healing rate in patients with refractory sickle cell ulcers.

II. Determine the effect of arginine butyrate therapy on tissue factors related to promotion or inhibition of wound healing in these patients.

III. Determine whether the regimen used in this study is appropriate for testing in pivotal trials.

Detailed description:
PROTOCOL OUTLINE: This is a randomized, multicenter study. Patients are randomized to one of two treatment arms. Arm I: Patients receive arginine butyrate IV over 6-9 hours at night 5 days a week for 12 weeks, plus concurrent standard local therapy consisting of cleaning, saline irrigation, and dressing changes as prescribed by each patient's physician. Patients who experience progressive healing receive arginine butyrate 3-4 times a week. Arginine butyrate treatment may be discontinued and reinstated following a single 2 week medical complication.

Arm II: Patients receive standard local therapy alone for 12 weeks. Patients randomized to arm II may cross over to receive arginine butyrate if no or less than 25% healing is observed after 12 weeks.

Patients whose ulcers have closed by at least 15% per cycle may receive 2 additional 8-week cycles of arginine butyrate therapy and are followed for 2 months after healing is completed.

Arms:
arm 1: Each subject provided his/her own dressing e.g,standard local care includes cleaning, saline irrigation, dressing changes only for 8 weeks twice a week. arm 2: Arginine Butyrate IV plus Standard local care dressing for a total of 12 weeks. Low dose 500 mg/kg or, increased dose 750 mg/kg. First week AB given 5 days in a row, over 6 to 12hours. arm 3: Patients are randomly assigned (following a table of random numbers prepared by a blinded statistician) between two arms of the study. Arm I is Standard local care dressing only, and Arm II is standard local care plus Arginine Butyrate (AB), the Investigational New Drug. Ulcers observed \& traced weekly. Ulcer area calculated by computerized planimetry. After 12 weeks of therapy, if the ulcer size decreased by at least 25%, the AB may be continued for another 8 weeks (twice), or until the ulcer closes, plus an additional 2 weeks. The patients randomized to the Control Arm (standard local care) were given the option of crossing over to Arm II If, ulcers did not close after 8 weeks of standard local care.

Interventions: intervention 1: Arginine Butyrate intervention 2: Standard local care dressing
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: To determine if Arginine Butyrate accelerates healing of refractory leg ulcers over Standard Local Care alone. intervention 2: To heal leg ulcers.

Protocol document: