Fluvoxamine treatment of coincident autistic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder: a case report.

Cooper et al. (1990) wrote a one-page note. They said a person had both autism and OCD. The doctor gave the drug fluvoxamine. The paper stops there. No scores, no graphs, no side-effects list.

It is a case report, not a trial. The goal was simply to share the clinical picture.

The paper gives no result. It only says the drug was prescribed. We do not know if rituals dropped, if anxiety fell, or if nothing changed.

Slater et al. (2020) ran a real test. In 158 kids with autism, low-dose fluoxetine did no better than placebo for repetitive behaviors. That large RCT now supersedes the 1990 anecdote.

Willemsen-Swinkels et al. (1998) tried the same drug class in seven autistic teens. They saw small gains in irritability and stereotypy. Their open series adds early signal, but it still lacks control.

Reaven et al. (2003) took a different road. One child with Asperger’s got tailored CBT for OCD. Rituals dropped markedly. The case shows behavior therapy can work where the 1990 pill story stays silent.

The 1990 note is historical, not practical. Today you have firmer ground: SSRIs show weak or null effects for repetitive behavior in controlled trials, while CBT has small positive case series. Screen for true OCD, measure baseline, and try behavioral moves first. If you trial an SSRI, track data and stay ready to taper.

Fluvoxamine, marketed as Luvox, is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) most often used for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This paper is a single-case report of using it in a person with both autistic disorder and comorbid OCD.

The report draws psychological, neuroanatomical, and neurochemical parallels between autistic disorder and OCD, using the shared features to reason about why an SSRI might affect symptoms of both.

A single-case report describes one patient and cannot establish efficacy or safety. It is useful for generating hypotheses and illustrating clinical reasoning, not for guiding prescribing decisions.

Broader controlled research on SSRIs in autism has been mixed, with some trials showing limited benefit and notable activation side effects in children. Any medication decision belongs with a prescribing clinician who weighs current evidence for the specific presentation.