Adjunct drugs helping kids with ADHD

Drugs work on kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, but not all kids and not always a single pharmacologic agent. Some children respond, but suboptimally.

New research was designed to assess efficacy and safety of guanfacine extended release (GXR) as an adjunct to psychostimulants in children diagnosed with ADHD who didn’t respond well to psychostimulants alone. Psychostimulants are also referred to as stimulant medications. Many kids with ADHD take stimulants to make the central nervous system and brain more effective. Two kinds of stimulants are methylphenidate and dexmethylphenidate. They affect the balance of serotonin and dopamine in the brain, increasing a person's ability to pay attention and manage impulsivity. This is the most common class of ADHD drugs prescribed for both children. Examples include Ritalin, Concerta, Metadate, Daytrana and Focalin.

Dr. Timothy E. Wilens and collegues conducted a nine week multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-optimization study. They utilized 59 study sites. A stable dose of psychostimulant was given in the morning and then patients were randomized to receive GXR either in the morning or in the evening with another group receiving a placebo and acting as a control.

Subjects receiving GXR plus a psychostimulant – whether in the morning or the evening – showed significantly greater improvement compared with subjects receiving placebo plus psychostimulant. No new safety signals emerged after adjunctive administration of GXR with psychostimulant compared to psychostimulant alone.

Wilens and colleagues stated in their report, “The results of this study support the hypothesis that adjunctive administration of the selective alpha-adrenoceptoragonist, GXR, to a psychostimulant in subjects with suboptimal response to psychostimulants reduces ADHD symptoms over placebo with a psychostimulant.”

Source: ScienceDaily, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry