Cardio Risk of Acute Schizophrenia Olanzapine Duke

Launched by DUKE UNIVERSITY · May 5, 2008

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

Olanzapine offers greater therapeutic antipsychotic benefit than the other non-clozapine antipsychotic medications available in the U.S., making it a desirable choice for the long-term maintenance treatment of patients with schizophrenia (Lieberman et al, 2005). Long-term compliance with an efficacious antipsychotic medication is fundamental to optimal therapeutic outcomes. Toward this goal, a long-acting injectable preparation of olanzapine will soon be available.

However, the long-term use of olanzapine has been limited by its substantial, un-wanted effects on metabolism that result in w...

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• Inclusion Criteria:
• • We will include patients who come to us free of antipsychotic medication, i.e., patients with chronic schizophrenia (with at least one prior psychiatric hospitalization) who have been off antipsychotic medication for at least 3 weeks and who are newly hospitalized for treatment of an acute psychotic relapse; these patients will be male or female, 18-60 years of age, meet DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia, and have scores \>=4 on at least two of the PANSS Positive subscale items.
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • We will exclude patients whose psychoses are predominantly affective in nature or explainable on the basis of substance abuse or a co-morbid medical condition, patients with diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, mental retardation, or organic mental syndromes, and patients currently taking metformin or a statin.