Am J Psychiatry 1994; 151:1817-1818
Copyright © 1994 by American Psychiatric Association
Early response to clozapine in schizophrenia
RG Stern, RS Kahn, M Davidson, RM Nora and KL Davis
Schizophrenia Biological Research Center, Bronx VA Medical Center, N.Y.
Forty schizophrenic patients were treated with clozapine for 5 weeks.
Patients were then classified as treatment responders or nonresponders
according to a priori established criteria. After only 1 week of treatment,
the responders showed a significant decrease on the Brief Psychiatric
Rating Scale (BPRS) total score and the psychosis and tension subscale
scores. Higher BPRS scores at baseline and larger improvements in BPRS
scores after the first week predicted a more favorable outcome in this
trial and yielded good classification accuracy.
