Escitalopram in Preschool-Age Children Diagnosed with Obsessive ‎Compulsive Disorder: A Case Report ‎

Corresponding author: Kemal Utku Yazici‎, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Firat University Medical Faculty, ‎Elazig, Turkey Tel: ‎+90 544 3058952‎ Fax: +90 424 2122717 Email: [email protected] When a literature review on pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is ‎performed, it is observed that there is a dearth of research on preschool period OCD ‎cases. Although cognitive behavioral therapy is recommended as the first line of ‎treatment in preschool OCD cases when patients do not show adequate response to ‎CBT, psychopharmacological treatment offers an alternative. The first line used in ‎psychopharmacological treatment is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors‎ (SSRI’s).‎ ‎However,‎ no‎SSRI’s‎ (or‎ any‎other‎drug‎group)‎have‎ been approved by the FDA for this ‎age group. Moreover, studies related to psychopharmacology in preschool OCD are very ‎limited in the literature, consisting mostly of case reports related to sertraline and ‎fluoxetine. In those studies, it is reported that sertraline and fluoxetine are effective in ‎preschool OCD and generally well-tolerated. In this paper, we discussed the treatment ‎and six-month follow-up period of a 3.5 yearold (42 months) female diagnosed with ‎OCD and for whom escitalopram was used. In the literature, there is a retrospective case ‎series related to this subject consisting of eleven cases, where improvement in symptoms ‎is reported with escitalopram treatment in the five of six cases diagnosed with OCD. As ‎far as we could find in literature, our paper is the second report on this subject. Our case ‎also included the youngest patient to receive escitalopram for preschool period OCD ‎and report its benefits.‎