Objective: To assess the effect of withdrawal of antipsychotic treatment on relapse risk in remitted first-episode schizophrenia patients.

Methods: First-episode 1-year stable and remitted outpatients with a schizophrenic disorder were randomly allocated to continuation of their antipsychotic regimen for at least 6 months (N = 9), or gradual withdrawal (N = 11). Primary outcome was the difference in cumulative relapse-free survival at 9 months.

Results: Recruitment was terminated prematurely on 26 October 2005. The cumulative relapse-free survival was 88% (SE = 0.12) in the continuation and 18% (SE = 0.12) in the discontinuation group (P = 0.001) at 9 months follow-up.

Conclusions: Discontinuation of antipsychotic medication markedly increases the risk of relapse in stable remitted first-episode schizophrenia patients. In future studies the topics of safety monitoring and sampling of patients should receive extra attention.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/13651501.2010.534801DOI Listing

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