A Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Efficacy, Tolerability, and Safety of a Fixed Dose Combination of Spironolactone, Pioglitazone & Metformin (SPIOMET) in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)

Summary

This is a multi-centre, multi-national, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, parallel, randomised Phase II clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy, tolerability, and safety of a fixed dose combination of Spironolactone, Pioglitazone and Metformin (SPIOMET) for adolescent girls and young adult women with polycystic ovary syndrome.

Study description: Currently, there is no European Medicines Agency /U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved therapy for polycystic ovary syndrome in adolescent girls and young adult women. Oral contraceptives (OCs) are prescribed off-label to approximately 98% of AYAs with PCOS, including those without pregnancy risk. OCs alleviate key symptoms by inducing a pharmacological combination of anovulatory subfertility, regular pseudo-menses, and extreme elevations of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), but OCs do not revert the underlying pathophysiology, and patients remain at risk for post-treatment subfertility and possibly, for lifelong co-morbidities.

Given the key role of hepato-visceral fat excess in the pathogenesis of PCOS, the prime aim of the treatment should be to achieve a preferential loss of central fat, which should in turn normalise the entire PCOS phenotype. Recent evidence disclosed that a treatment consisting of a fixed low-dose combination of two insulin sensitisers \[pioglitazone (PIO) and metformin (MET), with different modes of action\], and one mixed anti-androgen and anti-mineralocorticoid (spironolactone), was superior to an OC in normalising the PCOS phenotype, including ovulation rates and hepato-visceral fat.

The study's main goals are to assess the efficacy, tolerability and safety of a new treatment (SPIOMET) for adolescent girls and young adult women with polycistic ovarian syndrome; the comparison (in this order) of each SPIOMET, spironolactone and pioglitazone (SPIO) and PIO over placebo; and in addition, the comparison of SPIOMET over PIO and over SPIO (in this order).

Primary Objective: To test the efficacy of SPIOMET in normalising ovulation rate in adolescents and young adult women with PCOS.

Secondary Objectives: To test the efficacy of SPIOMET in normalising the endocrine-metabolic status, to describe the drug safety profile and to assess the adherence and subjective acceptability, as well as the quality of life of the participating subjects.

Conditions

• Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)

Interventions

DRUG

Placebo

Comparator arm with placebo

DRUG

Pioglitazone

Pioglitazone 7.5 mg/day

DRUG

Spironolactone

Spironolactone 50 mg/day

DRUG

Metformin

Metformin 850 mg/day

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Fundació Sant Joan de Déu

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lourdes Ibañez, MD, PhD · Investigator

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

QUADRUPLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

12 Years

Max Age

23 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-05-24

Primary Completion

2025-04-30

Completion

2025-04-30

Countries

• Austria
• Denmark
• Italy
• Norway
• Spain
• Turkey (Türkiye)

Study Locations