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Essential Vocal TremorPhase 4NCT02111369

Propranolol and Botulinum Toxin for Essential Vocal Tremor

A Phase 4 study testing Propranolol and Botulinum Toxin in people with Essential Vocal Tremor and Essential Voice Tremor, run by Emory University at 1 site in United States.

Completed

Finished. The study has ended and is not enrolling. Results may be posted on the official record.

Official record
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Trial summary

Essential tremor is the most common adult-onset movement disorder, and essential voice tremor is the vocal manifestation of essential tremor. While nearly all essential tremor patients experience hand tremor, many also manifest head tremor and voice tremor. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 45 years and older
What is being tested?
Propranolol and Botulinum Toxin
Could I receive a placebo?
No, everyone receives an active treatment
How many people
18 participants
Where
1 siteUnited States
Study dates
May 2014to Nov 2014
Phase
Phase 4
Are there results?
Yes, posted in the registrySummary in the doctors' view

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 45 years and older
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Who may be able to join

  • Diagnosis of essential voice tremor
  • Patients who have received or are planning to receive botulinum toxin injections for essential voice tremor
  • Patients who give informed consent to be contacted for research

Who cannot join

  • Patients who are already on a beta blocker
  • Patients who suffer from hypotension, bradycardia, or otherwise have a medical contraindication to beta blocker therapy (eg. moderate to severe bronchial asthma)
  • If the patient has received botulinum toxin injections for EVT previously, a three-month washout period is necessary before participation.

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country.

United States1 site
  • Emory Voice Center

    Atlanta, Georgia, 30308

Other trials in United States

About this study

Essential tremor is the most common adult-onset movement disorder, and essential voice tremor is the vocal manifestation of essential tremor. While nearly all essential tremor patients experience hand tremor, many also manifest head tremor and voice tremor. Essential voice tremor can lead to increased vocal effort, decreased intelligibility, and misconstrued emotional state. Only one medication, propranolol, is FDA-approved to treat essential tremor. Propranolol is not felt to be nearly as effective for axial tremors (head, trunk, neck) as it is for extremity tremors. However, this has not been studied with any objective assessment in a prospective way for EVT. For patients with essential voice tremor, the limited published data suggests that botulinum toxin has been shown to lead to functional voice improvement. Botulinum toxin, though also not well-studied with objective voice outcomes, is a commonly used clinical therapy for treatment of essential voice tremor. While it is used more often for essential voice tremor than propranolol therapy, botulinum toxin also has not been prospectively studied with validated, objective voice outcome measures. The investigators would like to determine if propranolol has any significant effect on vocal tremor. The investigators would also like to determine, in an objective way, the effect of botulinum toxin on vocal tremor. If effective, propranolol would provide an affordable and non-invasive alternative or addition to botulinum toxin injections for patients with essential voice tremor.

Read the detailed description

Specific Aims

  • Determine the effect of propranolol on vocal tremor in the treatment-seeking population.

To date, the nonselective beta-blocker propranolol remains the only agent approved for the treatment of essential tremor (ET). For ET, immediate and sustained release formations of propranolol are equally effective, while other beta-blockers like nadolol and timolol are not as effective. While propranolol improves tremor in greater than half of patients with essential tremor, its effects on tremor are not evenly distributed. Improvement in tremor symptoms is greater for limb tremor than axial tremor, and therefore propranolol is not commonly used for the treatment of essential voice tremor (EVT). However, its effect on essential voice tremor has never been objectively, prospectively studied. Our aim is to objectively determine the effect of propranolol on essential voice tremor in the treatment-seeking population by evaluating patients with EVT before and after propranolol therapy.

  • Determine the effect of botulinum toxin injections on vocal tremor in the treatment-seeking population.

More recently, botulinum toxin A has been used for the treatment of EVT. Chemical denervation with botulinum toxin is only modestly effective in reducing limb tremor in ET and complicated by side effects of weakness. However, botulinum toxin seems to be more effective in treating EVT than other manifestations of ET. While prior studies have not enlisted validated assessments of voice quality to measure the effect of botulinum toxin injections on EVT, they have shown subjective improvement in acoustic measures of tremor and ratings of videotaped speech after therapy with botulinum toxin. Our aim is to objectively determine the effect of botulinum toxin on vocal tremor in the treatment-seeking population by evaluating patients with EVT before and after botulinum therapy.

Voice Evaluations and Medications

For the first evaluation, a research coordinator will collect demographics and patient reported data. This data will result from providing patient questionnaires and recording the patient's voice. VRQOL data will be collected by having the patient answer ten statements on a 1-5 scale, such as "I have trouble speaking loudly or being heard in noisy situations" or "I run out of air and need to take frequent breaths." QUEST data will be also recorded to a 30-item essential tremor-specific questionnaire. Patient will also complete a global voice rating of a 0-7 scoring of "How would you rate your voice today?" After these subjective questionnaires, patient will participate in a vocal recording using prompts and passages from the validated CAPE-V voice assessment tool.

After a discussion of the risks and benefits of propranolol therapy, the patient will then be given a prescription by the principal investigator for propranolol.

The second evaluation will occur at an office visit two weeks after initiating propranolol therapy. Again, this will consist of patient-reported V-RQOL, QUEST, and global voice rating data. Patient will participate in a second vocal recording using prompts and passages from the validated CAPE-V voice assessment tool.

At this second evaluation, patient will receive botulinum toxin injections. The risks and benefits of botulinum toxin therapy will be explained to the patient, and bilateral injections will take place.

Four weeks after botulinum toxin injection, the patient will undergo the third voice assessment. Again, this will consist of patient-reported V-RQOL, QUEST, and global voice rating data. Patient will participate in a third vocal recording using prompts and passages from the validated CAPE-V voice assessment tool.

Being tested
Propranolol, Botulinum Toxin
Keywords
Essential Tremor, Essential Vocal Tremor, Essential Voice Tremor
Medical subject headings
Essential Tremor

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

  • PropranololDrug

    Also called Inderal

    After a discussion of the risks and benefits of propranolol therapy, the patient will then be given a prescription by the principal investigator for propranolol. This prescription will consist of a starting dose of generic immediate-release at 10 mg three times daily (30 mg each day) with an increase in dose in 5-7 days if there is no effect (60 mg each day) and if the patient had demonstrated no side effects. Dose may be increased to 240 mg each day depending on patient improvement and side effect profile.

  • Botulinum ToxinProcedure or surgery

    At the second evaluation, patient will receive botulinum toxin injections. The risks and benefits of botulinum toxin therapy will be explained to the patient, and bilateral injections will take place.

Study groups in NCT02111369
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Propranolol/BotulinumExperimentalAfter baseline analysis, patient will be given a prescription by the principal investigator for propranolol. This prescription will consist of a starting dose of generic immediate-release at 10 mg three times per day (30 mg each day) with an increase in dose in 5-7 days if there is no effect (60 mg each day) and if the patient had demonstrated no side effects. Dose may be increased to 240 mg each day depending on patient improvement and side effect profile. After second evaluation, patient will receive botulinum toxin injections. The risks and benefits of botulinum toxin therapy will be explained to the patient, and bilateral injections will take place.
Receives: Drug: Propranolol; Procedure: Botulinum Toxin

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Change in Quality of Life in Essential Tremor (QUEST) Questionnaire Score

    The QUEST questionnaire is a 30 item self-reported essential tremor-specific quality of life scale that asks participants to rate responses (never/no, rarely, sometimes, frequently, always/yes, or not applicable). Total scores range between 0 to 100 where 0 is the best score and 100 is the worst score. A higher score indicates a lower quality of life.

    Measured: Baseline, 2 weeks, 6 weeks

  2. Change in Voice-Related Quality Of Life (VRQOL) Questionnaire Score

    The VRQOL is a ten question self-reported measure that asks patients to rate responses from 1-5 (1=none, not a problem, 2=a small amount, 3=a moderate (medium) amount, 4=a lot, 5=problem is as "bad as it can be"). Total scores range from 0 to 100. A higher score indicates more problems interfering with day to day activities.

    Measured: Baseline, 2 weeks, 6 weeks

  3. Change in Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) Score

    The CAPE-V is a clinically validated perceptual voice assessment tool that is used to describe the severity of auditory-perceptual attributes of a voice problem, in a way that can be communicated among clinicians. Participant's speech is recorded and evaluated by trained "listeners". Listeners indicate overall tremor severity by making a tick mark on a 1 to 100 mm visual analog scale. Total scores range from 0 to 100 where 0 is the best score and 100 is the worst score.

    Measured: Baseline, 2 weeks, 6 weeks

  4. Change in Global Voice Rating

    Patient-Reported Measure

    • 0-7 ranking

    Measured: Baseline, 2 weeks, 6 weeks

  5. Change in Acoustic Spectrograms

    Objective Voice Assessment

    • Using the Computerized Speech Laboratory speech and voice analysis system (KayPENTAX, Montvale, NJ)

    Measured: baseline, 2 weeks, 6 weeks

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted11 Apr 2014 (estimated)
  2. Study startMay 2014
  3. Primary completionOct 2014
  4. Study completionNov 2014

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Phase 4
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrolment
18 participants (actual)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT02111369
Sponsor's protocol ID
IRB00072929
Status last verified
Mar 2016
First submitted
8 Apr 2014
Last updated
27 Apr 2016
Data monitoring committee
Yes

Publications

  • Sulica L, Louis ED. Clinical characteristics of essential voice tremor: a study of 34 cases. Laryngoscope. 2010 Mar;120(3):516-28. doi: 10.1002/lary.20702.

    PubMed 20066728
  • Zesiewicz TA, Shaw JD, Allison KG, Staffetti JS, Okun MS, Sullivan KL. Update on treatment of essential tremor. Curr Treat Options Neurol. 2013 Aug;15(4):410-23. doi: 10.1007/s11940-013-0239-4.

    PubMed 23881742
  • Gurey LE, Sinclair CF, Blitzer A. A new paradigm for the management of essential vocal tremor with botulinum toxin. Laryngoscope. 2013 Oct;123(10):2497-501. doi: 10.1002/lary.24073. Epub 2013 Apr 1.

    PubMed 23553653
  • Adler CH, Bansberg SF, Hentz JG, Ramig LO, Buder EH, Witt K, Edwards BW, Krein-Jones K, Caviness JN. Botulinum toxin type A for treating voice tremor. Arch Neurol. 2004 Sep;61(9):1416-20. doi: 10.1001/archneur.61.9.1416.

    PubMed 15364688
  • Hogikyan ND, Sethuraman G. Validation of an instrument to measure voice-related quality of life (V-RQOL). J Voice. 1999 Dec;13(4):557-69. doi: 10.1016/s0892-1997(99)80010-1.

    PubMed 10622521
  • Troster AI, Pahwa R, Fields JA, Tanner CM, Lyons KE. Quality of life in Essential Tremor Questionnaire (QUEST): development and initial validation. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2005 Sep;11(6):367-73. doi: 10.1016/j.parkreldis.2005.05.009.

    PubMed 16103000

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

A Phase 4 study testing Propranolol and Botulinum Toxin in people with Essential Vocal Tremor and Essential Voice Tremor, run by Emory University at 1 site in United States.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 3 inclusion and 3 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: finished, as of the sponsor's last update on 27 Apr 2016. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in United States. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

What does this phase mean?

Phase 4 studies take place after a treatment is approved, to learn more about its long-term benefits and risks in everyday use.

Not every study follows the same path, and some studies (observational studies, device studies) have no phase.

Are results available for this study?

Yes. Results are posted in the registry (first posted 27 Apr 2016). A summary is in the For doctors view, and the full results are on ClinicalTrials.gov.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Change in Quality of Life in Essential Tremor (QUEST) Questionnaire Score (time frame: Baseline, 2 weeks, 6 weeks). The study lists 5 primary outcomes in all. It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?

On the ClinicalTrials.gov record for NCT02111369, which also lists 6 linked publications.

Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 27 Apr 2016.

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