Risperidone long-acting therapy in stable patients with recently diagnosed schizophrenia

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Pharmacology

Background:

• Schizophrenia requires early and sustained treatment for optimal long-term outcomes.
• Injectable long-acting antipsychotics offer a potential strategy for improving treatment adherence and outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if early treatment with risperidone long-acting therapy (RLAT) is associated with better outcomes in recently diagnosed schizophrenia patients compared to those with longer illness duration.
• To compare relapse rates and clinical improvements between recently diagnosed and longer-diagnosed patient groups receiving RLAT.

Main Methods:

• Post-hoc analysis of a 1-year study involving stable schizophrenia patients on RLAT (25 or 50 mg every 2 weeks).
• Comparison of patients diagnosed <3 years (recently diagnosed, n=57) versus >3 years (n=266).
• Assessment of relapse rates and changes in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and Clinical Global Impressions-Severity (CGI-S) scores.

Main Results:

• Recently diagnosed patients had numerically lower relapse rates (10.5% vs. 21.8%, P=0.053).
• Both groups showed significant improvements in PANSS and CGI-S scores (P<0.01).
• Recently diagnosed patients demonstrated significantly greater improvement in adjusted mean PANSS total scores (-10.2 vs. -3.8, P=0.004) and CGI-S scores (-0.5 vs. -0.2, P=0.002) compared to longer-diagnosed patients.

Conclusions:

• Risperidone long-acting therapy (RLAT) is beneficial for patients with schizophrenia.
• Earlier initiation of RLAT in schizophrenia is associated with superior clinical outcomes, including greater symptom reduction.