Study on tolerability and efficacy of paliperidone palmitate, olanzapine pamoate and risperidone long acting injection in a romanian sample of patients with schizophrenia

Abstract

Due to its debilitating character and the propensity to chronicity, schizophrenia is one of the most important psychotic disorder of modern times. Recent studies have emphasized the superiority of depot long-acting antipsychotics (LAIs) versus oral antipsychotics in terms of remission maintenance and the prevention of relapses and (re)hospitalization events. Here we designed a mirror-image study meant to analyse the efficacy of one-year long LAI therapy for 21 patients admitted to the “Eduard Pamfil” Psychiatry Clinic Timisoara for which a previous one-year long oral antipsychotic therapy didn’t provide satisfactory results. To further strengthen our analysis, we have also compared the mirror-image data set with the results of a parallel analysis of a control group of 11 patients under therapy with the same oral antipsychotics for an equivalent period (two years) of time. Both analyses have shown a significant reduction of re-hospitalization accompanied by a substantial alteration of PANSS scores dynamics in the group of patients treated with LAIs, thus proving the overall superiority of LAIs in comparison with oral antipsychotics. Last but not least, we critically discuss two rather sensitive issues in schizophrenia therapy, the high level of polypharmacy and a hidden bias of clinical psychiatrists in selecting the patients suitable for therapeutic switch from oral to depot antipsychotics.