[Situation of sultopride among present-day neuroleptics]

The authors report preliminary clinical investigations about sultopride, a new substituted benzamid, related to sulpiride. The drug was administered to thirty-nine hospitalized psychotic patients. A very powerful and constant efficacy of sultopride was observed in 11 manic and hypomanic typical syndroms: excitation was controlled between the first and third day, with oral doses of 1,200-1,800 mg. But thymical inversion was observed in 8 cases (3 light anxious states and 5 typical melancholic syndroms). Besides, interesting improvements were obtained in atypical excitation disorders, chronic hallucinatory delusions, acute oniric and confusional states, schizophrenia and chronic alcoholism. Side-effects were frequent: extrapyramidal syndroms, often requiring antiparkinsonian correctors, somnolence, asthenia, and above all (in 30 percent of cases) psychical side-effects, consisting in depressive and anxious modifications of mood, even apart from manic-melancholic psychosis. This psychotropic depressive effect appears as very interesting theoretically, and justifies further enquiry.