Acetazolamide for Obstructive Sleep Apnea to Improve Heart Health
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT05616260. 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.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a severe type of snoring causing people to choke in their sleep. It affects millions of Americans, causing many health problems. For example, patients with OSA often feel very sleepy and are at risk of falling asleep while driving. OSA also causes elevated blood pressure increasing the risk for heart attacks and strokes. Patients with OSA are often treated with a face-mask that helps them breath at night but can be difficult to tolerate. In fact, about half the patients eventually stop using this mask. Because there are few other treatments (and no drug therapy), many OSA patients are still untreated. Of note, especially young adults (i.e. 18 to 50 years old) benefit from treating their OSA, but they are also less likely to use the mask. Acetazolamide (a mild diuretic drug) has been used for over 50 years to treat many different conditions and is well tolerated. Recent data suggest, that acetazolamide may help OSA patients to not choke in their sleep and lower their blood pressure. Especially young adults with OSA are likely to respond well to this drug. Further, its low cost (66¢/day) and once- daily dosing may be particularly attractive for young OSA patients unable or unwilling to wear a mask each night. But previous studies had many limitations and did not focus on young adults. The goal of this study is to test if acetazolamide can improve sleep apnea and cardiovascular health in young adults with OSA (18-50 years old), and how it does that. Thus, we will treat 46 young OSA patients with acetazolamide or placebo for 2 weeks each. The order in which participants receive the drug or placebo will be randomized. At the end of each 2 week period we will assess OSA severity and cardiovascular health. Thus, this study will help assess acetazolamide's potential value for OSA treatment, and may also help to identify patients who are most likely to respond to acetazolamide (including select individuals \>50 years of age). Ultimately, this work promises a drug therapy option for millions of OSA patients who are unable to tolerate current treatments.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT05616260
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Phase 2
- Enrollment
- 54 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
- Acetazolamide Drug
- Placebo Drug
- Continuous Positive Airway Pressure Device
Drug · Device
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 18 Years to 50 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Dec 1, 2022
- Primary completion
- May 12, 2025
- Completion
- May 12, 2025
- Last update posted
- Nov 24, 2025
2022 – 2025
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UC San Diego; Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute Building | La Jolla | California | 92121 | — |
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 NCT05616260, 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 Nov 24, 2025 · Synced Sep 6, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT05616260 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.