The Reporter: December 1997, Vol.8, No.5
Study To Shed Light on Medication in Kids

Nearly 12 million children and adolescents are diagnosed with emotional disorders in the United States each year. Yet because the medications used to treat those disorders are tested mainly on adults, little is known about their safety and efficacy in children and adolescents. Now, a new NIH research center at P&S aims to correct that deficit.

The center, called the Research Unit in Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP), is one of only three such units in the country; the other units are located at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pittsburgh. Studies at the center aim to shed light on the use of medicines for mood and anxiety disorders in children.

An eight-week study at CPMC, under the direction of Dr. Laurence Greenhill, P&S associate professor of clinical psychiatry, and Dr. Daniel Pine, P&S assistant professor of clinical psychiatry, will monitor the effects of fluvoxamine in children and adolescents. The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions will conduct the same study.

The study will involve 200 children, ages 7 to 17, who have moderate to severe generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, or separation anxiety disorder. The children will receive one dose of fluvoxamine twice a day (given by their parents). At weekly follow-up visits, researchers will check for the drug's effectiveness and any side effects. The children will be monitored for long-term effects for a period of six months following treatment.

According to Dr. Greenhill, the study will help researchers gain important insights into the use of medication for childhood anxiety. "Anxiety disorders are more widespread in children than pediatricians once thought," says Dr. Greenhill. "It is our hope that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as fluvoxamine may prove beneficial in the treatment of these disorders in children and adolescents."

Fluvoxamine has been demonstrated to be effective for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder not only in adults but also in children and adolescents.

Researchers at the Columbia RUPP also will initiate studies measuring the safety of the commonly prescribed combination of Ritalin-clonidine in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and testing the efficacy of buspirone transdermal patches for the treatment of ADHD.

For depressed children, Columbia University's RUPP will examine the use of fluoxetine for the treatment of dysthymia-a mild but chronic form of depression-and will study whether antidepressant medication is useful for treating major depression in children.