Inpharma 1284 - 21 Apr 2001

Fluvoxamine for childhood/teenageOCD

Fluvoxamine is effective in the treatment of obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) in children and adolescentsand is well tolerated, conclude researchers from theUS.*

Their multicentre study included 120 patients aged8–17 years with OCD of > 6 months’ duration whowere randomised to receive fluvoxamine 50–200mg/day (n = 57) or placebo, for 10 weeks.

During the 10-week study period, fluvoxaminerecipients experienced significantly greaterimprovement of OCD symptoms than placeborecipients. In particular, the study showed that thescores on the Children’s Yale-Brown ObsessiveCompulsive Scale (CY-BOCS) were significantly lower atweeks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 10. The mean reduction in CY-BOCS total scores over the 10-week study period was 6(24.6%) and 3.3 (13.6%), respectively. 24 fluvoxaminerecipients (42%) and 17 placebo recipients (26%) weredefined as treatment responders, experiencing a 25%reduction in CY-BOCS scores. Interestingly, there was ahigher proportion of responders among children thanamong adolescents.

The most common adverse events amongfluvoxamine recipients were insomnia and asthenia.Most adverse events were mild and well tolerated. In thefluvoxamine group, 3 patients discontinued treatmentbecause of adverse events and 9 because of lack ofefficacy.* The study was sponsored by grants from Solvay Pharmaceuticals,Inc. US.

Riddle MA, et al. Fluvoxamine for children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder: a randomized, controlled, multicenter trial. Journal of theAmerican Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 40: 222-229, Feb2001 800862052

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Inpharma 21 Apr 2001 No. 12841173-8324/10/1284-0001/$14.95 Adis © 2010 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights reserved