Loxapine in newly admitted chronic schizophrenic patients

The standard drug Stelazine (STEL), at a dose of 50 mg/day, exhibited therapeutic activity significantly different from placebo (PL) activity on several variables, most notably BPRS, attesting to the sensitivity of the experiment. On the other hand, the investigational drug, loxapine (LOX), in doses of 100 mg/day for four weeks, could be differentiated from PL as treatment in the described population on only one variable (NGI-Imp.) and one item of the BPRS. On several variables, positive trends were noted, but the differences from PL did not attain the critical values necessary for statistical significance at P smaller than 0.05. One might speculate that the relatively short duration of treatment in this study might account for the difference between these disappointing results and the more gratifying results of a previous loxapine study in chronic long-term institutionalized schizophrenics with the same oral dose.