Effect of a Novel Nasal Oxytocin Spray on Autism

Effect of a Novel Nasal Oxytocin Spray With Enhanced Bioavailability on Autism: A Randomized Trial

A Randomized Trial

Hidenori Yamasue; Masaki Kojima; Hitoshi Kuwabara; Miho Kuroda; Kaori Matsumoto; Chieko Kanai; Naoko Inada; Keiho Owada; Keiko Ochi; Nobutaka Ono; Seico Benner; Tomoyasu Wakuda; Yosuke Kameno; Jun Inoue; Taeko Harada; Kenji Tsuchiya; Kazuo Umemura; Aya Yamauchi; Nanayo Ogawa; Itaru Kushima; Norio Ozaki; Satoshi Suyama; Takuya Saito; Yukari Uemura; Junko Hamada; Yukiko Kano; Nami Honda; Saya Kikuchi; Moe Seto; Hiroaki Tomita; Noriko Miyoshi; Megumi Matsumoto; Yuko Kawaguchi; Koji Kanai; Manabu Ikeda; Itta Nakamura; Shuichi Isomura; Yoji Hirano; Toshiaki Onitsuka; Hirotaka Kosaka; Takashi Okada

Disclosures

Brain. 2022;145(2):490-499. 

In This Article

Results

Baseline Characteristics

Before visiting each trial site, 34 of 210 candidates did not meet the eligibility criteria based on background information, 21 did not meet the criteria for Social Responsiveness Scale[48] and/or Autism Spectrum Quotient[49] scores (Supplementary material) and 11 declined to consent to participate. Of the 144 participants assessed for eligibility, consent was obtained from 127 adult males with ASD. Of these, 18 did not meet the eligibility criteria and 109 males with high-functioning ASD were enrolled between 25 June 2018 and 26 December 2019. End point assessments were performed between 27 September 2018 and 19 March 2020. The actual rate of withdrawal (7 of 109 cases, 6.4%) was lower than expected (i.e. 20%). Because the number of cases needed for analyses was calculated as ~120, we completed recruitment of 127 participants before registering a target sample size of 144 participants, which was calculated with an expected withdrawal rate of 20%.

Six of the 109 participants did not complete the trial because they withdrew their consent. Of these, three withdrew before the first administered period and three withdrew during the washout period. Another participant in the placebo-TTA-121 10 U group did not complete the trial because of an adverse event (a mild emergence of blasts in the blood) during the washout period (Figure 1).

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