Double-blind study of clozapine dose response in chronic schizophrenia.

Objective: This study explored the relative efficacy of three different doses of clozapine.

Method: Fifty patients who met Kane et al.'s criteria for treatment-refractory schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were studied.

Does akathisia influence psychopathology in psychotic patients treated with clozapine?

Background: Akathisia has been reported to predict more severe symptoms and poorer treatment response to typical neuroleptics among patients with schizophrenia. Akathisia has also been associated with symptom exacerbation. This study addressed four questions: 1) Does akathisia predict greater severity in global psychopathology? 2) Is this effect global or specific? 3) Does clozapine treatment alter this relationship? 4) Does severity of psychopathology covary with the level of akathisia?

Methods: Akathisia and clinical symptoms were examined in 33 "treatment refractory" schizophrenic patients treated with clozapine across 16 weeks.

Diurnal variability of orofacial dyskinetic movements.

Objective: Instrumental methods to measure tardive dyskinesia (TD) have been introduced in the last few years to try to eliminate the differences in inter-rater reliability. After eliminating variations attributed to the use of different raters, it is clear that TD frequently shows fluctuations in severity contributing to a low test-retest reliability. In the present study the diurnal variability of dyskinetic movements was explored by a computerized technique using digital imaging processing to measure orofacial movements.

Absence of changes in antidiuretic hormone, angiotensin II, and atrial natriuretic peptide with clozapine treatment of polydipsia-hyponatremia: 2 case reports.

Background: Polydipsia-hyponatremia is a poorly understood disorder that causes considerable mortality and morbidity. Hyponatremia in polydipsia-hyponatremia has been attributed to disturbances in antidiuretic hormone (ADH) function. Improvements in polydipsia-hyponatremia during clozapine treatment offered the chance to see if levels of ADH and other hormones associated with osmoregulation changed with improvement in biochemical and clinical measures of polydipsia-hyponatremia.