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

When a literature review on pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is ýperformed, it is observed that there is a dearth of research on preschool period OCD ýcases. Although cognitive behavioral therapy is recommended as the first line of ýtreatment in preschool OCD cases when patients do not show adequate response to ýCBT, psychopharmacological treatment offers an alternative. The first line used in ýpsychopharmacological treatment is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s). ýHowever, no SSRI’s (or any other drug group) have been approved by the FDA for this ýage group. Moreover, studies related to psychopharmacology in preschool OCD are very ýlimited in the literature, consisting mostly of case reports related to sertraline and ýfluoxetine. In those studies, it is reported that sertraline and fluoxetine are effective in ýpreschool OCD and generally well-tolerated. In this paper, we discussed the treatment ýand six-month follow-up period of a 3.5 year-old (42 months) female diagnosed with ýOCD and for whom escitalopram was used. In the literature, there is a retrospective case ýseries related to this subject consisting of eleven cases, where improvement in symptoms ýis reported with escitalopram treatment in the five of six cases diagnosed with OCD. As ýfar as we could find in literature, our paper is the second report on this subject. Our case ýalso included the youngest patient to receive escitalopram for preschool period OCD ýand report its benefits.ý