Epidemiology of major depression in Belgian parkinsonian patients.

Background: Epidemiological data concerning the prevalence of major depression in PD patients in Belgium is very scarce.

Methods: A total of 1086 patients with idiopathic Parkinsons disease were included in the analysis. The neurological evaluation of the patients was made by the Hoehn and Yahr Staging of Parkinsons disease, the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), and the Schwab and England Activities of Daily Living.

Metabolic abnormalities associated with second generation antipsychotics: fact or fiction? Development of guidelines for screening and monitoring.

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated a relevant increased risk of diabetes in schizophrenic patients who are treated with many atypical antipsychotics, irrespective of concomitant weight gain. Numerous case reports and some large retrospective cohort studies have documented an increased risk of diabetes with some second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs), leading different authors to identify patients on SGA as another high-risk group for diabetes in their review articles. An American consensus conference dealing with this problem has proposed much awaited guidelines for the monitoring of patients on SGA and recommended acquiring additional data, especially from large-scale prospective studies.

Efficacy and tolerability of quetiapine in patients with schizophrenia who switched from haloperidol, olanzapine or risperidone.

A post hoc analysis of the SPECTRUM trial was carried out to evaluate whether the improvements in efficacy and tolerability gained on switching to quetiapine occurred consistently for patients previously treated with either: haloperidol (n = 43); olanzapine (n = 66); or risperidone (n = 55) monotherapy. Patients were initiated with quetiapine to 400 mg/day over 7 days, and then flexibly dosed (300-750 mg/day) for 11 weeks. The mean (SD) modal dose of quetiapine was 501 (138) mg/day in the haloperidol subgroup, 472 (147) mg/day in the olanzapine subgroup and 485 (141) mg/day in the risperidone subgroup at the study endpoint.

Venlafaxine compared with fluoxetine in outpatients with depression and concomitant anxiety.

The aim of this double-blind study was to compare the efficacy and safety of venlafaxine vs. fluoxetine in the treatment of patients with depression and anxiety. A total of 146 moderately depressed patients with associated anxiety were randomized to receive 75 mg/d venlafaxine or 20 mg/d fluoxetine for 12 wk.