A research team has shown in a follow-up of schizophrenics for 10 years that maintenance treatment after the first psychotic episode is beneficial in the long term.
In schizophrenia, a team of researchers has shown over a 10-year follow-up that continuing maintenance antipsychotic treatment for 3 years following a first psychotic episode decreases the risk of relapse as well as long-term functional degradation.
Their results are published in The Lancet March 15, 2018.
What to do after a first psychotic episode
Until now, the long-term consequences of stopping antipsychotic treatment after successful management of a first episode of psychosis had not been the subject of in-depth studies. Chinese researchers are evaluating in a randomized, double-blind, 10-year trial the relationship between early maintenance treatment and clinical outcome at 10 years.
Between September 2003 and December 2014, the researchers followed 178 patients who had a first psychotic episode with complete resolution of symptoms after at least one year of treatment. Half of them received maintenance treatment (oral quetiapine) while the second half received a placebo equivalent to an early stopping of treatment, and this for 12 months.
Beneficial maintenance treatment
In practice, the conclusions of the trial show a clinical result considered mediocre at 10 years in 35 patients (39%) in the placebo group against 19 of the patients (21%) receiving maintenance treatment.
Suicide occurs in the follow-up phase in 4 patients (4%) in the group corresponding to early discontinuation of treatment versus two (2%) in the maintenance treatment group.
The researchers therefore estimate that in individuals who have had a first episode of psychosis and have a complete initial response to treatment, the continuation of maintenance treatment for at least the first 3 years the acute psychotic episode decreases the risk of relapse as well. that a poor long-term functional result.
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