HealthDay (10/22, Gordon) reports, “The commonly used antidepressant Prozac [fluoxetine] doesn’t appear to help reduce obsessive-compulsive behavior in children and teens with autism,” researchers concluded in a study that “recruited nearly 150 children and teens with autism,” only 109 of which “completed the study.” The findings were published online Oct. 22 in JAMA.
Medscape (10/22, Anderson, Subscription Publication) reports that all “study participants had ‘significant problems’ with obsessive-compulsive behaviors, with a total score of six or more on the Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale–Modified for pervasive developmental disorders (CYBOCS-PDD).” But, “commenting for Medscape Medical News, Gabrielle L. Shapiro, MD, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and chair of the American Psychiatric Association…council on children, adolescents and families, described the study as ‘somewhat flawed.’” Besides “the CYBOCS, the inclusion of other outcome scales ‘more specific’ to” children with autism “in the primary analysis may have produced different results, said Shapiro, who was not involved with the current study.”
Healio (10/22, Gramigna) reports that the author of an accompanying editorial “emphasized the nullification of the overall findings by the prespecified analyses.” He wrote, “Despite the limitations, the outcome…is consistent with similar trials and contributes new evidence that SSRIs do not add any value over placebo for repetitive behaviors in children and adolescents with ASD as captured in the CYBOCS-PDD.” The editorialist called for “additional rigorous studies…both to identify other potential treatments for core symptoms and, for SSRIs, to determine whether clinical indications other than repetitive behaviors might account for their persistent widespread use in ASD.”
Related Links:
— “Antidepressant Doesn’t Ease Obsessive Behaviors of Autism, “Serena Gordon, HealthDay, October 22, 2019