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Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2001;155:1176.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The recent report of Lobaugh et al¹ provides convincing evidence that piracetam is not the miracle drug for Down syndrome claimed by its proponents. The study is well controlled, the analysis detailed, and the conclusions strong. Yet an examination of their data reveals positive effects that the authors have overlooked and evidence that the negative effects are of less concern than their comments would warrant.

First, Figure 2 lists 72 primary outcome measures of attention, memory, perceptual abilities, executive function, and fine motor skills. Of these, 46 produced results that were better for piracetam than for the placebo. An outcome such as this or better by chance is highly unlikely (binomial test, P = .01).

Second, 11 of 18 parents reported cognitive improvement with piracetam and only 2 of 18 reported the same with the placebo. Such an outcome is also highly unlikely by chance (2-tailed Fisher exact test, P . . . [Full Text of this Article]