Long-acting antipsychotic medication – an effective treatment for schizophrenia

A recent report has shown that treatment with a long-acting drug called risperidone may decrease the severity of schizophrenia and improve functioning for patients. This is new and important research, as very little information is known about the use of long acting injectable medications in the community.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects around 1% of the Australian population. The exact cause of the disorder is not known, but genetic and environmental factors (such as child abuse) may play a role. Schizophrenia is characterised by distortions of thought, delusions (false beliefs and paranoia) and hallucinations (either seeing or hearing things that aren’t really there). A classic symptom is hearing voices which can be disturbing for patients. There are also negative symptoms which can dull your emotions, speech and motivation. Schizophrenia can lead to significant impairments of functioning in social and work circumstances.

Treatment of schizophrenia usually consists of anti-psychotic medications to control symptoms of delusions and hallucinations. These usually need to be given on a long-term and regular basis. There are now newer long-acting medications available which are currently being evaluated in clinical trials.

A study currently being performed is looking at one particular long-acting injectable anti-psychotic medication called risperidone. An international database called the Electronic Schizophrenia Treatment Adherence Registry (e-STAR) is being used to record the information. The severity of disease according to a clinician and overall functioning of patients will be compared to the one year period before they started treatment with risperidone.

The study is not yet completed, but the study group published some early results of 238 Australian patients who received continuous long-acting risperidone for a period of 18 months. These patients had improvements in their disease severity (from moderate-marked to mild-moderate) and overall improvement in functioning (from serious symptoms/impairment to moderate symptoms/impairment). These improvements were evident early and remained until 18 months of treatment. Patients on long-acting risperidone also had less hospital admissions.

Long-acting risperidone injections may therefore be a useful medication for the many schizophrenia sufferers in Australia. However, clinical research is still continuing and it is important to discuss with your doctor whether this treatment is suitable for you. to date results look promising, and it will be interesting to follow up the final results of the completed trial.

Reference

1. Emmerson B, Hustig H, Lambert T, Povey M, Jacobs A on behalf of e-STAR Study Group. Evaluation of Australian patients from the e-STAR survey: 18-month interim analysis from the e-STAR database, Janssen-Clag Pty Ltd 2007.