Anti-inflammatory Pulmonal Therapy of Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Patients With Amitriptyline and Placebo

Cystic fibrosis patients suffer from a chronic destruction of the lung, frequent and finally chronic pneumonia and a reduced life expectancy. Unfortunately, no curative treatment for cystic fibrosis is available, neither are treatments established that prevent the disease. Our data identify ceramide as a potential novel target to treat cystic fibrosis. Two smaller trials support the notion that inhibition of the acid sphingomyelinase by amitriptyline improves the lung function of CF-patients even at a dose that is low enough to avoid adverse effects. In the present proposal the investigators, therefore, aim to test in a larger cystic fibrosis patient population whether an inhibition of ceramide release in the lung caused by the lack of functional CFTR improves the lung function of cystic fibrosis patients. Inhibition of ceramide-release in the lung will be achieved by treatment with amitriptyline, which is used as an anti-depressant drug for almost 50 years. Although it is not absolutely specific, it seems to be relatively specific for the degradation of acid sphingomyelinase (typically 60-80% of cellular acid sphingomyelinase are degraded), which releases ceramide from sphingomyelin. If the data confirm the beneficial effect of amitriptyline already observed in our preliminary studies, the present clinical study may establish a novel treatment to improve clinical symptoms of cystic fibrosis and, moreover, to prevent or at least delay the onset of cystic fibrosis. Hypothesis * Amitriptyline reduces ceramide concentrations in respiratory epithelial cells (measured in nasal epithelial cells obtained by brushing nasal mucosa). * Amitriptyline treatment reduces cell death in bronchi and deposition of DNA on the respiratory epithelium, which permits elimination of P. aeruginosa from the lung (measured as P. aeruginosa counts in tracheal fluid). * Amitriptyline treatment results in normalization of the function of leukocytes (number determined in serum and tracheal f