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Title: Statin Not Effective for Children With Learning Disabilities Caused by Neurofibromatosis
URL: http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/225D6E.htm
Doctor's Guide
July 15, 2008

CHICAGO -- July 15, 2008 -- Use of simvastatin in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) did not result in improved cognitive function, according to a study in the July 16 issue of JAMA.

Lianne C. Krab, Erasmus MC University Medical Center and Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues, conducted a randomised trial to study the effect of the simvastatin on cognitive function.

The study included a total of 62 children with NF1. The children received simvastatin or placebo treatment once daily for 12 weeks.

After the treatment period, there was no significant difference between the simvastatin and placebo groups on several cognitive measures, including assessing nonverbal long-term memory, and assessing attention and prism adaptation task.

In the secondary outcome measures, researchers found a significant improvement in object assembly scores in the simvastatin group, which was specifically observed in children with poor baseline performance. Other secondary outcome measures, such as attention fluctuations and a developmental test of visual-motor integration revealed no significant effect of simvastatin treatment.

"The negative outcome of this trial suggests that simvastatin should not be prescribed to ameliorate the cognitive deficits associated with NF1. Further studies to evaluate a longer treatment period and whether the object assembly finding is spurious may be warranted," the authors wrote.


SOURCE: JAMA

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