Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T04:34:53.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Initial severity and efficacy of risperidone in autism: Results from the RUPP trial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2020

S.Z. Levine*
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
A. Kodesh
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Y. Goldberg
Affiliation:
University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
A. Reichenberg
Affiliation:
Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment, Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA
T.A. Furukawa
Affiliation:
Departments of Health Promotion and Human Behavior and of Clinical Epidemiology, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, School of Public Health, Kyoto, Japan
A. Kolevzon
Affiliation:
Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment, Departments of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA
S. Leucht
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität München, München, Germany
*
*Corresponding author at: Department of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa, 31905 Haifa, Israel. Tel.: +972 524 896 083; fax: +972 376 173 74. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.Z. Levine).
Get access

Abstract

Background

Risperidone is a common psychopharmacological treatment for irritability in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is not well-established how effective risperidone is across the initial symptom severity range. This study aims to examine the influence of baseline severity on the efficacy of risperidone in the treatment of ASD.

Methods

Participants were from the NIMH funded RUPP multisite, randomized, double-blind trial that compared risperidone to placebo to treat autistic disorder with severe tantrums, aggression, or self-injury. Participants were aged 5 to 17, and randomly assigned to risperidone (n = 49) or placebo (n = 52). Baseline and change scores were computed with the Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) parent assessed scales with irritability as the primary outcome, as well as the clinician assessed ABC Irritability subscale, and Clinical Global Impression Scale.

Results

The relationship between baseline severity and change scores for the risperdone and placebo groups was examined with eight competing three-level mixed-effects models for repeated measure models. Significant (P < 0.01) interactions between treatment and baseline severity were observed for parent ABC ratings of irritability and lethargy only. Greater magnitudes of the differences between risperidone and placebo were observed from moderate to very severe baseline severity on irritability and lethargy. Initial severity values over approximately 30 had a strong effect on symptom change [irritability: effect size (ES) = 1.9, number needed to treat (NNT) = 2, lethargy ES = 0.9, NNT = 5].

Conclusions

Parents may expect benefits of risperidone on irritability and lethargy with moderate to severe symptoms of ASD.

Trial registration

Registry name: ClinicalTrials.gov, trial identifier: NCT00005014, URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00005014?term=NCT00005014&rank=1, registered on March 31, 2000.

Type
Original article
Copyright
Copyright © European Psychiatric Association 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bailey, A., Phillips, W., Rutter, M.Autism: towards an integration of clinical, genetic, neuropsychological, and neurobiological perspectives. J Child Psychol Psychiatry 1996; 37(1): 89–126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baio, J.Prevalence of autism spectrum disorders: autism and developmental disabilities monitoring network, 14 sites, United States, 2008. Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Surveillance summaries. Volume 61, Number 3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2012.Google Scholar
Estes, A., Olson, E., Sullivan, K., Greenson, J., Winter, J., Dawson, G., et al.Parenting-related stress and psychological distress in mothers of toddlers with autism spectrum disorders. Brain Dev; 2013; 35(2): 133–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Findling, R.L.Pharmacologic treatment of behavioral symptoms in autism and pervasive developmental disorders. J Clin Psychiatry 2005; 66(Suppl. 10):26–31.Google ScholarPubMed
Spencer, D., Marshall, J., Post, B., Kulakodlu, M., Newschaffer, C., Dennen, T., et al.Psychotropic medication use and polypharmacy in children with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics; 2013; 132(5): 833–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aman, M.G., Lam, K.S., Collier-Crespin, A.Prevalence and patterns of use of psychoactive medicines among individuals with autism in the Autism Society of Ohio. J Autism Dev Disord 2003; 33(5): 527–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Khan, A., Brodhead, A.E., Kolts, R.L., Brown, W.A.Severity of depressive symptoms and response to antidepressants and placebo in antidepressant trials. J Psychiatr Res 2005; 39(2): 145–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kirsch, I., Deacon, B.J., Huedo-Medina, T.B., Scoboria, A., Moore, T.J., Johnson, B.T.Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: a meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Med 2008;5(2):e45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fournier, J.C., DeRubeis, R.J., Hollon, S.D., Dimidjian, S., Amsterdam, J.D., Shelton, R.C., et al.Antidepressant drug effects and depression severity: a patient-level meta-analysis. JAMA; 2010; 303(1): 47–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melander, H., Salmonson, T., Abadie, E., van Zwieten-Boot, B.A regulatory apologia – a review of placebo-controlled studies in regulatory submissions of new-generation antidepressants. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 2008; 18(9): 623–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibbons, R.D., Hur, K., Brown, C.H., Davis, J.M., Mann, J.J.Benefits from antidepressants: synthesis of 6-week patient-level outcomes from double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trials of fluoxetine and venlafaxine. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2012; 69: 572–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Furukawa, T.A., Levine, S.Z., Tanaka, S., Goldberg, Y., Samara, M., Davis, J.M., et al.Initial severity of schizophrenia and efficacy of antipsychotics: participant-level meta-analysis of 6 placebo-controlled studies. JAMA Psychiatry; 2015; 72(1): 14–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, B.H., Dukes, K., Donnelly, C.L., Sikich, L., McCracken, J.T., Scahill, L., et al.Baseline factors predicting placebo response to treatment in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders: a multisite randomized clinical trial. JAMA Pediatrics; 2013; 167(11): 1045–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, L.E., Farmer, C., Kraemer, H.C., Davies, M., Witwer, A., Chuang, S., et al.Moderators, mediators, and other predictors of risperidone response in children with autistic disorder and irritability. J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol; 2010; 20(2): 83–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCracken, J.T., McGough, J., Shah, B., Cronin, P., Hong, D., Aman, M.G., et al.Risperidone in children with autism and serious behavioral problems. N Engl J Med; 2002; 347(5): 314–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDougle, C.J., Scahill, L., McCracken, J.T., Aman, M.G., Tierney, E., Arnold, L.E., et al.Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP) Autism Network. Background and rationale for an initial controlled study of risperidone. Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am; 2000; 9(1): 201–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guy, W.Clinical Global Impression Scale. The ECDEU assessment manual for psychopharmacology-revised volume DHEW Publ. No. ADM 76. 1976;338:218–22.Google Scholar
Aman, M.G., Singh, N.N., Stewart, A.W., Field, C.J.The aberrant behavior checklist: a behavior rating scale for the assessment of treatment effects. Am J Ment Defic 1985; 89(5): 485–91.Google ScholarPubMed
Arnold, L.E., Vitiello, B., McDougle, C., Scahill, L., Shah, B., Gonzalez, N.M., et al.Parent-defined target symptoms respond to risperidone in RUPP autism study: customer approach to clinical trials. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry; 2003; 42(12): 1443–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hedeker, D., Gibbons, R.D.Longitudinal data analysis Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2006.Google Scholar
Schwarz, G., Gideon, E.Estimating the dimension of a model. Ann Stat 1978; 6(2): 461–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ihaka, R., Gentleman, R.R: a language for data analysis and graphics. J Comput Graph Stat 1996; 5(3): 299–314.Google Scholar
Pinheiro, J., Bates, D., DebRoy, S., Sarkar, D., R Core Team, nlme: linear and nonlinear mixed-effects models. R package version 3. 1-117 Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing; 2014.Google Scholar
Furukawa, T.A., Leucht, S.How to obtain NNT from Cohen's d: comparison of two methods. PloS One 2011;6(4):e19070.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fernandez-Mayoralas, D.M., Fernandez-Jaen, A., Munoz-Jareno, N., Calleja-Perez, B., Fernandez-Perrone, A.L., Arribas, S.L.Treatment with paliperidone in children with behavior disorders previously treated with risperidone: an open-label trial. Clin Neuropharmacol 2012; 35(5): 227–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilder, J.The law of initial value in neurology and psychiatry; facts and problems. J Nerv Ment Dis 1957; 125(1): 73–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, J.Statistical power analysis in the behavioral sciences Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum; 1988.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Levine et al. supplementary material

Table S1-S6

Download Levine et al. supplementary material(File)
File 40.4 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.