Pancreatic Replacement Therapy for Maladaptive Behaviors in Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Importance: There is an urgent unmet need for a treatment addressing the core symptoms and associated maladaptive symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially in preschool populations.

Objectives: To evaluate whether treatment of children with ASD aged 3 to 6 years treated with high-protease pancreatic therapy produces long- and short-term improvements in autism-associated maladaptive behaviors.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This cohort study at 32 sites across the US used a double-blind parallel group, delayed-start design comprising a 2-week blinded placebo run-in, and a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled segment (12 weeks).

Photodynamic therapy systems and applications.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a form of photochemotherapy requiring the simultaneous presence of a photosensitiser, activating light of the proper wavelength and molecular oxygen in order to produce a localised therapeutic effect thought to be due to high-energy singlet oxygen generation. Neither drug nor light alone are effective as therapeutic agents and thus PDT treatment methods should be looked upon as true, necessary, drug and device combinations ('systems'). Selectivity of treatment is imparted by a combination of factors, including accumulation of photosensitiser by the target lesion and targeted application of activating light.