Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition where eating gluten triggers the immune system to damage the small intestine. About 1 in 100 people have it, though many remain undiagnosed. The only current treatment is a strict gluten-free diet for life, which reverses intestinal damage in most people but remains difficult to maintain perfectly.
What's actually going on in research
Trials are testing enzymes that break down gluten before it triggers a reaction, drugs that block gluten from entering intestinal cells, and therapies that retrain the immune system to tolerate gluten. Researchers are also studying larazotide acetate, which tightens intestinal junctions to reduce gluten leakage, and transglutaminase inhibitors that interrupt the autoimmune cascade.
Gluten-digesting enzymes
Several enzymes are in trials to break down gluten in the stomach before it reaches the small intestine. They aim to protect against accidental gluten exposure rather than replace the gluten-free diet.
Immune tolerance therapies
Vaccines and immune-modulating drugs are being tested to desensitize the immune system to gluten. The goal is to allow people with celiac disease to eat normal diets without intestinal damage.
Tight junction regulators
Larazotide acetate and similar drugs aim to keep intestinal barriers tight, reducing gluten penetration into tissue. Early trials showed some symptom improvement in people with ongoing exposure.
What to know before you search
Eligibility typically depends on having biopsy-confirmed celiac disease, adherence to a gluten-free diet, and sometimes evidence of ongoing symptoms or intestinal inflammation despite diet.
What types of trials are currently open
- Enzyme trials — Testing pills taken with meals that break down gluten before it can trigger intestinal damage.
- Immune modulation trials — Testing vaccines or drugs that aim to retrain the immune system to tolerate gluten without attacking the intestine.
- Barrier function trials — Testing drugs that tighten intestinal junctions to prevent gluten from leaking through and triggering inflammation.
- Gluten challenge studies — Controlled studies where participants eat measured amounts of gluten to test whether experimental treatments prevent intestinal damage.
- Diagnostic studies — Testing better ways to screen for celiac disease or monitor intestinal healing without repeated endoscopies.
Recently added Celiac Disease trials
Complete heart health screening to catch cholesterol problems early
Preventive measures are increasingly coming to the forefront of medicine. Many of these measures can be implemented as early as childhood and adolescence. For instance, the early detection and treatment of cardiovascular risk factors can significantly reduce long-term morbidity and mortality associated with cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke. For years, there has been discussion in Germany about assessing lipid profiles during childhood and adolescence to enable early intervention in cases of conditions like familial hypercholesterolemia. However, comprehensive screening has not yet been established in either clinical guidelines or routine practice. In other countries, such as Norway, universal screening has been conducted for many years and has already demonstrated both its benefits and cost-effectiveness. In Germany, screening, and subsequent early treatment if needed, is currently limited to a small number of children and adolescents-such as patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM)-as part of their routine preventive check-ups. The prevalence of dyslipidemia in T1DM is approximately 15%. Reliable prevalence data are lacking for almost all other chronic conditions affecting children and adolescents (e.g., inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, rheumatic diseases, congenital heart defects). Through a pilot project at Jena University Hospital, we aim to screen children and adolescents with chronic conditions who are already at increased cardiovascular risk due to their underlying diseases. The project will record lipid levels, clinical data, family history, and lifestyle factors. The results of this study enable us, on the one hand, to help the individual through early diagnosis and consequent treatment recommendations; on the other hand, the data provide important information regarding the prevalence of hyperlipidemia and other risk factors-such as physical inactivity-within this high-risk cohort.
Receive targeted radiation to relieve cancer-related abdominal pain
This is a prospective, single-arm, pilot feasibility clinical trial designed to evaluate the feasibility and safety of a simulation-free adaptive radiotherapy workflow to enable single-session celiac plexus SBRT planning and delivery. In this trial, the treatment itself is non-investigational (standard-of-care celiac plexus SBRT) but the treatment workflow (simulation-free, using adaptive radiotherapy to compress treatment planning and delivery into a single session) is novel. Investigators hypothesize the successful completion of the simulation-free ART workflow through treatment delivery in the first on-table treatment attempt for at least 80% of patients.
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