Recent evidence linking hyperprolactinaemia to longer-term clinical sequelae, including osteoporosis, hip fractures and possibly breast cancer, is increasing clinical awareness of the relevance of hyperprolactinaemia. A review of the literature finds clinical trials reporting some degree of comparative prolactin data among antipsychotics. Many of the randomised clinical trials (RCTs) do not rep...

In the last decades, there has been increased interest in the field of quality of life in mental disorders in general, and particularly in schizophrenia. In addition, the appearance of the atypical antipsychotic drugs (amisulpride, aripiprazole, clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone) with different therapeutic and side-effect profiles, has promoted a greater interest i...

CONTEXT Schizophrenic symptoms are linked to a dysfunction of dopamine neurotransmission and the brain reward system. However, it remains unclear whether antipsychotic treatment, which blocks dopamine transmission, improves, alters, or even worsens the reward-related abnormalities. OBJECTIVE To investigate changes in reward-related brain activations in schizophrenia before and after antipsychot...

Background: Antipsychotics are commonly prescribed for a variety of psychiatric disorders which require prolonged treatment. If costly brand is prescribed, it reduces patient compliance, especially in the lower socio-economic groups. Awareness about cost variation among different brands will guide an economically effective prescription by treating physician.Methods: The used oral antipsychotic ...

We would like to present a rare case report describing a case in which new-onset tonic-clonic seizures occurred following an unintentional durotomy during lumbar discectomy and decompression. Unintentional durotomy is a frequent complication of spinal surgical procedures, with a rate as high as 17%. To our knowledge a case of new onset epilepsy has never been reported in the literature. Althoug...

BACKGROUND To analyse the extent and profile of outpatient regular dispensation of antipsychotics, both in combination and monotherapy, in the Barcelona Health Region (Spain), focusing on the use of clozapine and long-acting injections (LAI). METHODS Antipsychotic drugs dispensed for people older than 18 and processed by the Catalan Health Service during 2007 were retrospectively reviewed. Fi...

BACKGROUND There is concern over the methods used to evaluate antipsychotic drugs. AIMS To assess the clinical relevance of findings in the literature. METHOD A systematic review identified studies of antipsychotics that used the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). A published method of translating these into Clinical Global Impression - C...

The post mortem redistribution of ten commonly prescribed antipsychotic drugs (APs) was investigated. Femoral blood was collected from 273 cases at admission to mortuary (AD) and at post-mortem (PM). The PM samples were collected at various times up to nine days after admission and the sample pairs analysed using LC-MS/MS. The drugs included in this study were 9OH-risperidone (paliperidone), am...