Safety and Effects of Cerebrolysin in Children Suffering from Autism attending to Neurology Clinic of Children Medical Hospital Since 2014 to 2015

Background and Objective: Autism is one of the pervasive developemental disorders. The prevalence of typical autism among five-year-old children in Iran is reported 6.3 per 10,000 Children. Because the studies about the effect of cerebrolysin in childhood autism are limited, we performed a study to reveal the cereblolysin effect on childhood autism. Materials and Methods: In this interventional quasi-experimental study 36 children aging from 3 to 10 years with the diagnosis of autism attending to Neurology Clinic of Children Medical Hospital, Tehran, Iran since September 2014 to March 2015 were enrolled. celebrolysin was administered 0.1 CC/Kg via intramuscular route, three days a week in first month, and in the second month the injection times in first to fourth week was 2, 2, 1, and 1 times per week, respectively. CARS questionnaire fulfilled before and one month after complete intervention. This study was approved by Ethical Committee of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and the informed consent form was signed by all parents. Data analysis was performed by SPSS version 20.0 (Chicago, IL, USA) software and Paired-Sample-T test was used. Findings: The mean age of 36 patients, 22 males and 14 females, was 5.96 ± 2.15 years. The mean paternal and maternal ages were 38.1 ± 7.2 and 34.7 ± 7.2 years, respectively. The family history for autism was present in one case. Among the fathers and mothers 22.2% and 5.6% were current smoker, respectively. All children except two, were term at birth and had normal birth weights. The mean gravid was 1.6 ± 0.9 times. 41.7% of children had abnormal motor development. Prenatal and perinatal problems were seen in 16.7% of patients. Parental consanguinity was detected in nine cases (25%). The mean head circumference was 34.6 ± 1.2 cm at birth and 51 ± 2.1 cm in current visit. All evaluated items except level and consistency of intellectual response had favorable reduction in scores of CARS questionnaire (P=0.001). The total score was decreased from 40.6 to 36.1 that is showing 11.1% improvement in children. Conclusion: According to the results, safety and feasibility of cerebrolysin administration in autism children is concluded; but furthur double-blind placebo control trials studies are needed to confirm these results.

کلیدواژه ها:

Cerebrolysin ، Autism ، Children ، CARS questionnaire