Research article

Safety and efficacy of oral DMSA therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders: Part B - Behavioral results

James B Adams¹ , Matthew Baral² , Elizabeth Geis³ , Jessica Mitchell² , Julie Ingram³ , Andrea Hensley³ , Irene Zappia³ , Sanford Newmark⁴ , Eva Gehn³ , Robert A Rubin⁵ , Ken Mitchell³ , Jeff Bradstreet^2,6 and Jane El-Dahr⁷

¹Division of Basic Medical Sciences, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, Tempe, AZ, USA

²Department of Pediatric Medicine, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, Tempe, AZ, USA

³Autism Research Institute, San Diego, CA, USA

⁴Center for Integrative Pediatric Medicine, Tucson, AZ, USA

⁵Department of Mathematics, Whittier College, Whittier, CA, USA

⁶International Child Development Resource Center, Phoenix, AZ, USA

⁷Department of Pediatrics, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA, USA

author email corresponding author email

BMC Clinical Pharmacology 2009, 9:17doi:10.1186/1472-6904-9-17

Published:	23 October 2009

Abstract

Background

This study investigated the effects of oral dimercapto succinic acid (DMSA) therapy on the behavioural symptoms of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) ages 3-8 years.

Methods

Phase 1 involved 65 children with ASD who received one round of DMSA (3 days). Participants who had high urinary excretion of toxic metals were selected to continue on to phase 2. In phase 2, 49 participants were randomly assigned in a double-blind design to receive an additional 6 rounds of either DMSA or placebo.

Results

The groups receiving one round and seven rounds of DMSA had significant improvements on all the assessment measures. For the seven round group, the degree of improvement on the assessment measures could be partially explained by a regression analysis based on excretion of toxic metals and changes in glutathione (adjusted R² of 0.28-0.75, p < 0.02 in all cases). One round of DMSA had nearly the same benefit as seven rounds. The assessment measures correlated reasonably with one another at the beginning of the study (r = 0.60-0.87) and even better at the end of the study (r = 0.63-0.94).

Conclusion

Overall, both one and seven rounds of DMSA therapy seems to be reasonably safe in children with ASD who have high urinary excretion of toxic metals, and possibly helpful in reducing some of the symptoms of autism in those children.