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New Drugs for Mania?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Detlev von Zerssen
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatric, Kraepelinstraße 10, D-8000 Munich 40 FRG
Hinderk M. Emrich
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatric, Kraepelinstraße 10, D-8000 Munich 40 FRG

Extract

D. H. Myers et al (Journal, 1981, 139, 118–21) reported negative results of a double-blind investigation of propranolol (up to 1,920 mg per day for up to several months) as an adjunct to conventional neuroleptic treatment in 10 therapy-resistant chronic schizophrenics (compared with 10 control patients under placebo in addition to neuroleptic medication). They concluded with Gardos et al (1973) that the “failure to find propranolol effective in chronic schizophrenia does not cast doubt on its possible effectiveness in acute psychoses.” Our own experience of the short-term treatment of acute psychoses with propranolol and/or oxprenolol in high doses was unsuccessful in three schizophrenics and affected only the manic symptomatology in four out of six patients with schizoaffective psychoses (cf. von Zerssen, 1976; Table I). In two of these patients paranoid delusions even intensified during medication. In two separate drug trials there was a definite improvement in four out of six manic patients treated with propranolol (up to 2,300 mg/day). Therapeutic failures were restricted to incomplete trials (medication of less than 1 g/day or of less than one week's duration).

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Copyright
Copyright © 1983 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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