The Pitfalls of Long-term Treatment with Atypical Neuroleptics

Overview

Atypical neuroleptics are becoming first line treatment in the majority of patients with schizop-hrenic disorders. From the point of view of side-effects their main advantage is the minimaloccurrence of extrapyramidal side-effects. But some other side-effects like weight increase, alte-red glucose metabolism, dyslipidaemia and hyperprolactinaemia may cause problems during thelong-term treatment. There are some differences among atypical antipsychotics as regards theseside effects, which could be partially explained by their pharmacological profile. Up till now weare short of long-term studies elucidating their persistence and importance for patients.

Key words:
atypical antipsychotic, side-effects, weight increase, dyslipidaemia, diabetes mellitus,