Thursday, October 16, 2014

Three Unsuccessful Trials


This blog posting summarizes several clinical trials aimed at curing type-1 diabetes which have failed.  These are never fun, happy blog postings, but they are important.  One of the big problems with trying to understand research based on mass media reporting is that failures are rarely covered at all.  The soundtrack for this posting is "Down" by Melissa Lambert:
http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Down/4BHhwn

Sitagliptin and Lansoprazole Unsuccessful in Phase-II Trial

This was a combination therapy.  The researchers were attempting to combine a drug to stop the autoimmune attack and another drug to trigger beta cell growth.  Both drugs were approved for other purposes, and commonly used.  Unfortunately, it didn't work.  Summary from abstract:
At 12 months, the mean change in C-peptide area under curve was −229 pmol/L for the treatment group and −253 pmol/L for the placebo group; this difference was not significant (p=0·77).
Abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213858714701159
Blog at start of trial: http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/2010/08/possible-cures-for-type-1-in-news-mid.html

Pioglitazone Unsuccessful in Phase-I Trial

Pioglitazone has been approved for use in type-2 diabetes for over 10 years. It is part of a larger drug family called thiazolidinediones which have been shown to preserve beta cells in animals with type-1 diabetes, and to reduce death of beta cells in petri dishes.  It was being tested as a honeymoon cure, but did not pan out:
Conclusion: In this pilot study, pioglitazone did not preserve β cell function when compared to placebo.
Article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3890222/
Previous blogging: http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/search/label/Pioglitazone

Stop Covering Lisofylline

As far as I can tell, no one has done human trials of this treatment for over two years, so I'm going to stop considering it as a possible cure, unless something new comes to light.  Lisofylline is an anti-inflammatory.

Previous coverage (one blog posting) is here:
http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com/search/label/Lisofylline


Joshua Levy
http://cureresearch4type1diabetes.blogspot.com 
publicjoshualevy at gmail dot com
All the views expressed here are those of Joshua Levy, and nothing here is official JDRF, JDCA, or Tidepool news, views, policies or opinions. My daughter has type-1 diabetes and participates in clinical trials, which might be discussed here. My blog contains a more complete non-conflict of interest statement. Thanks to everyone who helps with the blog.

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