A phase I trial of human corticotropin-releasing factor (hCRF) in patients with peritumoral brain edema

What Was Tested

Researchers studied ACTH (Corticotropin) and CRH (Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Human corticotropin-releasing factor (hCRF) is an endogenous peptide responsible for the secretion and synthesis of corticosteroids.

This effect, which appears to be independent of the release of adrenal steroids, appears mediated by a direct effect on endothelial cells.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this ACTH (Corticotropin) study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on ACTH (Corticotropin), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Some participants received a placebo instead of ACTH (Corticotropin), giving a reference point.

MRIs were repeated at completion of infusion and estimations by dual echo-image sequence (Proton density and T2-weighted images) of the amount of peritumoral edema were performed.

The study was performed in two stages.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Adrenal Glands, Adrenalectomy, Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal, Brain Edema, Brain Neoplasms, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone and Dexamethasone.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of ACTH (Corticotropin) and CRH (Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone).

Results are reported in around 9 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 1998 (Annals of oncology : official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology), a journal based in England.

More context: the ACTH (Corticotropin) compound page and the CRH (Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone) compound page, all human trials.