Prediction of neuroleptic-induced dystonia

For patients receiving neuroleptics, age, sex, neuroleptic potency, and dose all influence the likelihood of a dystonic reaction. Little is known, however, of the relative importance of these factors or of the feasibility of predicting dystonia in individual patients. We reviewed 135 charts of psychotic inpatients to examine these factors and their usefulness in predicting dystonia. Age, sex, neuroleptic type, dose, and occurrence of dystonia were recorded for the first 4 days of drug treatment and were used to construct a linear discriminant function that classified the cases as to whether dystonia was expected. Internal cross-validation was performed, and the error rate of this classification procedure was calculated. Forty-nine (36%) of the patients had dystonia. A younger age was the most powerful predictor of dystonia. Male gender was second in predictive power with minor effects from neuroleptic dose and potency. The overall error rate (false-positive and false-negative errors combined) of the discriminant function was 30%. These results suggest the possibility of predicting dystonia in individual patients but should be regarded with caution since the predictive procedure has not been tested prospectively. If confirmed, these data may allow treatment strategies that protect patients from dystonia while sparing patients not at risk unnecessary treatment with antiparkinson agents.