Pioglitazone to Treat Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01517165. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Official title
Pioglitazone as an Aid During Buprenorphine Taper
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Background: * Opioid-withdrawal symptoms include runny nose, body aches, chills, sweating, and diarrhea. Many people have these symptoms when trying to stop using opioid drugs. Long-acting opioids like methadone and buprenorphine are used to help people stop using other opioids, but these drugs can cause the same withdrawal symptoms. There are no non-opioid drugs that are approved specifically to treat those symptoms. * Pioglitazone is a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes. In a research study, the drug allowed heroin users to decrease their methadone dose faster without much discomfort, and stay abstinent from heroin. Researchers want to learn more about how pioglitazone helps treat opioid withdrawal symptoms. Objectives: \- To test whether pioglitazone can reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms. Eligibility: \- Individuals between 18 and 65 years of age who will be using buprenorphine to treat opioid dependency. Design: * This study will last up to 17 weeks. Participants must come to the study clinic every day for at least 13 weeks. * Participants will be screened with a physical exam and medical history. They will also answer questions about drug use habits, and provide blood and urine samples. * Participants will take buprenorphine daily for 7 weeks. For the first 3 weeks, the dose will be increased to a level that should help stop the use of opioids. For the next 4 weeks, the dose will be decreased. Blood, urine, and breath samples will be collected at different study visits. Participants will also fill out questionnaires about mood, drug craving, and withdrawal symptoms. * After 1 week on buprenorphine, participants will start the study pill (pioglitazone or a placebo) every day. They will take the study pill for 13 weeks. * During the treatment period, participants will have drug counseling once a week for 30 minutes. * Some participants have other tests as part of this study. These tests include functional magnetic resonance imaging scans to look for changes in brain activity and giving samples of cerebrospinal fluid to study brain chemistry. * Participants will have a final followup phone call 3 weeks after the last clinic visit.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01517165
- Recruitment status
- Terminated
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase 1
- Enrollment
- 24 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 65 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Accepts healthy volunteers
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Jan 3, 2012
- Primary completion
- Feb 1, 2015
- Completion
- Feb 1, 2015
- Last update posted
- Jul 4, 2018
2012 – 2015
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National Institute on Drug Abuse | Baltimore | Maryland | 21224 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01517165, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Jul 4, 2018 · Synced Sep 6, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01517165 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.