BACKGROUND Brain structure appears to alter after antipsychotic administration, but it is unknown whether these alterations are associated with improvement of psychopathology in patients with schizophrenia. In this study, the authors explore this relationship. METHOD Altogether, 66 first-episode, drug-naive patients with schizophrenia and 23 well-matched healthy controls underwent brain magne...

BACKGROUND Statistical models based on item response theory were used to examine (a) the performance of individual Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) items and their options, (b) the effectiveness of various subscales to discriminate among individual differences in symptom severity, and (c) the appropriateness of cutoff scores recently recommended by Andreasen and her colleagues (2005...

BACKGROUND Effective management strategies for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia remain an unmet need, and data on the use of antipsychotics in this population are scarce, particularly in Chinese patients. Therefore, we investigated amisulpride for the treatment of Chinese patients with predominantly negative symptoms of schizophrenia. METHODS This post hoc subanalysis of the prospective...

BACKGROUND Psychotic symptoms may be present in up to 40% of patients with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this study, we hypothesized that severity of psychotic symptoms would also reflect severity of PTSD symptoms in patients with well-defined psychotic features. METHODS Forty-five Vietnam combat veterans with PTSD but without a primary psychotic disorder diagnosis u...

BACKGROUND This 13-week, double-blind study was conducted to confirm the efficacy and safety of paliperidone palmitate (PP), at dosing regimens approved in other countries, in Asian patients with schizophrenia. METHODS Asian patients (aged ≥20 years) diagnosed with schizophrenia (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition-Text Revision criteria), and having a Positi...

We compared the efficacy of ziprasidone and amisulpride in the treatment of negative symptoms and overall psychopathology in subjects who had chronic schizophrenia with predominantly negative symptoms. This multicentre, 12-week, double-blind study randomly assigned subjects with predominantly negative-symptom schizophrenia [i.e. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) Negative Subscale sco...

OBJECTIVE Inflammatory processes may play a role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of adjuvant treatment with aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. METHOD This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted between May 2004 and August 2007. Seventy antipsychotic-treated inpatients and ou...

Objetivo: avaliar o estado nutricional e relação com grau da sintomatologia através Escala de Avaliação Síndrome Positiva Negativa (PANSS) em esquizofrênicos atendidos um serviço especializado Fortaleza, Ceará, Brasil. Metodologia: foram avaliados 154 pacientes acompanhados ambulatório psiquiatria, no tratamento esquizofrenia hospital universitário, situado Ceará. As variáveis estudadas foram: ...

We read with interest Dr Duggal’s letter on the combined use of atypical antipsychotics (AAs) and cognitivebehavioural therapy (CBT) in schizophrenia (1). Dr Duggal reports that his patient showed a reduction of 54% in symptom severity as indexed by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). His baseline score when unmedicated was 129 and varied from 83 to 102 with medication; when medic...