A Controlled Trial of Losartan in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Not Applicable

Completed

Brief Summary: This study is being conducted to determine if losartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB), is safe and effective in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. The study is also intended to determine if certain genetic markers are useful in predicting PTSD symptom reduction with losartan. Approximately 160 subjects with chronic PTSD ages 18-65 will participate in this study across five sites. Subjects will be assigned by chance to take either flexibly dosed losartan (up to a maximum dosage of 100 mg) or placebo (which resembles the study drug but has no active ingredients), once a day for 10 weeks. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that CC homozygotes for rs4311 SNP in the ACE gene will have a superior response to losartan on PTSD symptoms compared to T carriers.

Detailed Description: There are limited current treatments available for PTSD, and the only FDA-approved medications are SSRIs, which were empirically found to be somewhat helpful. Losartan provides a potentially important and exciting development in that it is readily available, safe, inexpensive (available as a generic drug), and has a neurobiological mechanism based on recent exciting discoveries, as outlined below. This proposal is designed to test, in a multisite RCT, this novel, mechanistically-determined, safe and well-tolerated, potentially powerful treatment for PTSD symptoms.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Not provided

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Losartan	losartan	Losartan flexibly dosed from 25-100 mg per day over 10 weeks
Placebo	Placebo	Placebo flexibly dosed from 25-100 mg per day over 10 weeks

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
The Primary Outcome for This Study is Mean Change in Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) Over the Treatment Period of 10 Weeks Between the Losartan Arm and the Placebo Arm.	10 weeks	Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 also known as CAPS-5 is the gold standard in PTSD assessment. The CAPS-5 is a 30-item structured interview that can be used to, make current (past month) diagnosis of PTSD, make a lifetime diagnosis of PTSD and assess PTSD symptoms over the past week. The CAPS-5 as used here has 20 items, each scored 0-4, to yield a score with a possible range of 0-80. Higher scores mean worse outcome.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Change in CAPS-5 Associated With CC Homozygosity for rs4311 SNP in the Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Gene (ACE) Compared to T Carriers, Among Subjects Randomized to Losartan.	10 weeks	The Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) as used here has 20 items, each scored 0-4, to yield a score with a possible range of 0-80. Higher scores mean worse outcome.

Locations (6): George Washington University
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Washington, District of Columbia, United States
McLean Hospital
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Belmont, Massachusetts, United States
New York University Langone Health
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New York, New York, United States
Massachusetts General Hospital
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Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center
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Bethesda, Maryland, United States
University of California, San Diego
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La Jolla, California, United States