Effect of the Endopeptidase AN-PEP on Gluten Exposure in Real Life in Celiac Disease Patients Treated With a Long-term Gluten-free Diet. Exploratory, Interventional, Prospective, Controlled and Double Blind Study

Background: The strict gluten-free diet (GFD) is the only accepted treatment for celiac disease (CeD). However, performing a strict diet is still a non solved problem affecting the future of patients. In a real-life study it was recently shown that 89% of treated CeD patients performing a strict diet have contact with dietary gluten at least one week per 4 weeks of testing and averaging 3 weeks per month. Furthermore, 40% of patients excreted gliadin immunogenic peptides (GIP) (surrogated markers of gluten exposure) in the range for immunological activation and intestinal mucosal damage. Endopeptidases to produce a complete intraluminal proteolysis of gluten avoiding antigenic stimulation were produced to avoid damage of continuous gluten exposure. AN-PEP is an Aspergillus niger derived endopeptidase has been produced aiming to luminal detoxification of gluten have been explored for its clinical effect. However, whether AN-PEP is able to completely destroy gluten in the context of the real life of CeD patients is still unknown. Hypothesis: The investigators estimate that AN-PEP is an effective therapy for proteolysis for gluten exposure in the real-life of CeD patients and that the effect could be detected by the reduction in the excretion of GIP in stool and urine based on a clinical research model that we developed. AIMS: to establish the effect of daily administration of AN-PEP compared to placebo in terms of: (1) frequency of GIP excretion in stool and urine episodes in 4 weeks; (2) concentration of GIP excretion for both arms; and (3) differences in proportion of patients excreting GIP above the threshold for mucosal damage (>2 µg/g of GIP in stool or >12 ng/mL in urine). Study design: Interventional, prospective, randomized, comparative, double-blind study. Components: 1- four-week GFD stabilization period; 2-Randomization. 3- four4-week study period: Patients blinded-receive active AN-PEP (GliadinX®) at a dose of 2 capsules/breakfast, lunch and dinner (study arm), or 2 capsules at same time points of placebo (specially designed and prepared for the study) (Placebo arm).