[Low-dose levodopa therapy of autistic disorder: evaluation of clinical effectiveness]

Based upon the hypothesis that brain monoamine metabolism is disorganized in some children with an autistic disorder, we tried low dose levodopa therapy (0.5 mg/kg/day) proposed by Segawa, et al. We treated 20 patients with an autistic disorder diagnosed according to DSM-IV, and evaluated the effectiveness. A double blind cross over method was applied in this study because of the small number of patients. Drug effects were observed carefully by the psychologists and pediatric neurologists using an evaluation sheet consisting of twenty items. No significant effectiveness was observed in this study, although four cases (20%) showed some improvement. In conclusion, administration of low dose levodopa to autistic children resulted in no clear clinical improvements of autistic symptoms.