Prospective Randomized Study of Oral Diazepam and Baclofen on Spasticity in Cerebral Palsy

Spastic cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common form of CP. Diazepam and Baclofen are the most commonly used oral drugs to manage spasticity. Study was designed to evaluate and compare their effects and safety in CP children.

Study was aimed to assess and compare outcome of oral Diazepam and Baclofen in spastic cerebral palsy children in terms of extent of reduction of spasticity and side effects profile.

Randomized prospective follow-up study was done for one year after giving Diazepam and Baclofen in weekly incremental doses upto recommended maximum dose to 60 children for three months. Two primary outcome measures were spasticity reduction and adverse effect profile. Spasticity reduction was measured by Modified Ashworth's Scale (MAS) and Range of Motion improvement (ROM).

After random allocation, there was no baseline difference between groups. Mean MAS score improved from 1.96±0.4 at baseline to 1.63±0.40 and 1.41± 0.36 at 1 month and 3 months for Diazepam and from 1.84±0.64 to 1.57±0.59 and 1.31± 0.48 respectively for Baclofen. Within the group reduction was significant with p-value = 0.0001. Intergroup comparison showed no statistically significant difference with p-value of 0.48 and 0.22 at 1 and 3 months. Baseline ROM showed significant improvement at 1 and 3 months with p value of 0.004 and 0.001 for Diazepam and 0.01 and 0.000 for Baclofen respectively with no statistically significant difference among two groups. Drowsiness was most common observed side effect in both the groups.

Patients showed significant improvement in spasticity as measured by Mean MAS score and range of motion in Diazepam as well as Baclofen group. Both drugs were found safe for use in children. Study couldn't establish any difference between the two drugs. However studies with bigger sample size and longer follow- up assessing functional improvement in patients will be required in near future.