Aripiprazole treatment of autistic disorder.(What's New in Research)(Clinical report)

Michael G. Aman, Ph.D., and colleagues have published an exploratory post-hoc analysis of two placebo-controlled trials of aripiprazole (Abilify) for treating irritability in autistic disorder. In this industry-funded trial they evaluated aripiprazole's efficacy in treating the discrete symptoms of irritability and other symptoms in a line-item analysis of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC). They found that improvements in irritability were due primarily to improvements in behaviors related to tantrums.

Study details

This analysis included data from two 8-week randomized, double-blind placebo -controlled studies (Owen et al., 2009 and Marcus et al., 2009) conducted at multiple sites, both investigating the efficacy of aripiprazole for irritability in children (aged 6-17) meeting DSM-IV-TR criteria for autistic disorder. The majority (roughly 88%) of each subject group was male and …