Safety and Preliminary Evidence of Efficacy of Escalating Doses of Dimiracetam in AIDS Patients With Painful Neuropathy

One hundred consenting AIDS patients suffering from treatment induced painful neuropathy will be blindly randomize to Active and Placebo groups (ratio A/P = 3/2 and will receive increasing oral doses of dimiracetam starting from 400 mg b.i.d. and doubling the dose every two weeks until a maximum of 1600 mg b.i.d. Escalation to the the higher dose is allowed only if the previous dose did not cause tolerability problems. The highest reached dose will be maintained for a total of 8 week treatment. Patients must have a self evaluated pain of at least 4 on a 10 cm visual analog scale (VAS). Primary end point of the study will be the number of Adverse Events (AEs) reported in the placebo versus the active group. Preliminary evidence of efficacy will be sought by comparing active and placebo group as to the intensity of their pain at study onset and at study end. The pain will be evaluated by the VAS the Total Symptoms Score and the Clinical Global Impression