[The Usefulness of Clonazepam as an Augmentative Treatment in a Case of Severe Childhood Onset Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder].

SUMMARY The goal of this study is to report on the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a chronic disabling condition that often presents during childhood and adolescence. Reports on adults using clonazepam for the treatment of OCD are more numerous than on children. Clonazepam as an augmentative treatment in OCD is still controversial. Our aim is to illustrate in a case report the efficacy of clonazepam as an augmentative treatment for severe childhood onset OCD. We report on the case of a young teenage girl with an extremely severe form of obsessive–compulsive disorder (score of 32 on the Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale), who, after a mild improvement with a combination of serotonin recapture inhibitors and second generation antipsychotics at high doses, has responded to clonazepam (3mg/day) augmentation of sertraline (200mg/ day) and olanzapine (15mg/day). Clonazepam was effective not only in reducing anxiety symptoms, but also in lowering compulsions and obsessions frequency within 6 weeks with a drop in the Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale of 16 points. It may be asserted that clonazepam could be useful in the initial stage for severe OCD in young patients.