Morphine Sulfate/Placebo for the Treatment of PulmonAry Fibrosis Cough
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2022-08-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a disease of unknown cause that results in scarring of
the lungs.
Cough is reported by 85% of patients with IPF and can be a distressing symptom with
significant physical, social and psychological consequences particularly anxiety and
depression.
The cause of cough in IPF is poorly understood and there are currently no proven effective
therapies. Morphine has long been advocated for the suppression of chronic cough in other
conditions. While morphine is frequently used as a palliative agent for breathlessness in
IPF, its effects on cough have never been tested. The aim of this study is therefore to
explore and compare the effect of low dose morphine, one of the few therapies shown to be
effective in some patients with otherwise refractory chronic cough, in patients with IPF, to
an inactive substance known as a placebo.
To make a fair comparison, patients will be randomly allocated to receiving either morphine
or placebo in a blinded fashion. This means neither the doctor nor the patient will know
which drug they are receiving, and the drugs will appear the same. However, the trial is
designed so that you will receive both morphine and placebo, but at different times (this is
called a cross-over study). More specifically, you will be given either morphine or placebo
for 14 days at a time.
In this study, it is hypothesised that compared with placebo, low dose (5mg) controlled
release Morphine sulfate (MST) will reduce the number of coughs recorded during a 24hr period
in patients with IPF.