Ketamine add-on Therapy for Established Status Epilepticus Treatment Trial (KESETT)

The goal of this clinical trial is to determine if treatment of patients with two doses of ketamine plus levetiracetam versus levetiracetam alone leads to more effective control of status epilepticus.

KESETT is a multicenter, randomized, blinded study to determine whether adding 1 mg/kg or 3 mg/kg dose of KET to 60 mg/kg LEV can terminate status epilepticus (SE) in a larger fraction of subjects with benzodiazepine-refractory SE than those treated with LEV (60 mg/kg) alone.

The primary outcome is termination of SE from 15 minutes after starting the study drug infusion, sustained until 60 minutes from enrollment without using additional anti-seizure medication. Termination of SE is determined by (1) improving consciousness and absence of clinically apparent seizures at 60 minutes or (2) absence of any electrographic SE after 15 minutes in those with EEG monitoring and no improvement in consciousness.

Secondary objectives include determining the relative safety of the treatment arms on defined safety outcomes and all adverse events, analysis of secondary/exploratory efficacy outcomes, and evaluation of both effectiveness and safety in the pediatric subpopulation.

The trial will initially allocate subjects equally (1:1:1) for the first 350 participants (burn-in period) before transitioning to response-adaptive randomization. Interim analyses will be conducted for efficacy and futility beginning when 350 subjects have been randomized, and will occur every 100 subjects thereafter. A maximum of 770 participants will be enrolled.