[About the association between antipsychotic medication and cardiovascular morbidity: epidemiology and possible...

The history of antipsychotics began with the discovery of chlorpromazine in the 1950s. Since then this group of medications has become one of the most important element of the armamentarium of psychopharmacology. While initially these pharmacons were used in the treatment of psychotic states (including psychotic mania) in the last approximately 10-15 years new indications - such as treatment of depressive, manic and mixed states and also mood-stabilization in bipolar disorder and also the treatment of major depressive disorder - for several second-generation antipsychotic (SGA) agents have been introduced. Taking this fact into consideration it is not surprising that the market of SGAs has been broadened in several countries. At the same time, safety issues have been raised related to some SGAs, mainly because of their adverse cardiometabolic effects (e.g. weight gain; dyslipidemia; disturbances of glucose metabolism). Related to this, it is worthy of note that the lifespan of patients with serious mental illness (SMIs, such as schizophrenia; bipolar disorder; major depression) is shorter than their healthy counterparts and that somatic comorbidities (mainly cardiovascular disorders) of these patients are primarily responsible for this fact. In this paper, firstly we briefly discuss the history and features of APs then we present data on the shorter than expected lifespan of patients with SMIs and also the possible background mechanisms of it (including the supposed role of AP treatment). Then we provide a short discussion on endothelial progenitor cells (EPC), their role in cardiovascular system and related clinical relevance. Eventually, we also discuss our pilot study with the aim to reveal whether there is any effect of AP therapy on the number of CD34/KDR double-positive EPCs.