New advances in psychotherapeutic agents: clozapine

Clozapine offers several very distinct clinical advantages, namely a therapeutic profile that appears to be superior to typical neuroleptic agents. This is particularly true in otherwise treatment refractory schizophrenics. Unfortunately, not all schizophrenic patients respond to clozapine therapy. The second major advantage of clozapine is its paucity of acute neurological effects and its apparent unlikelihood to produce tardive dyskinesia. The clinical benefits of clozapine must be weighed against the risk of cardiovascular side-effects that can occur with too rapid a titration, and the possibility of AGC. Given the fact that careful titration of dosage and white blood cell count monitoring can easily be used to avoid the serious side-effects of clozapine, it would appear that the clinical advantages of this medication clearly outweigh its risks.