Efficacy and safety of amisulpride treatment in schizophrenia: comparison with haloperidol

Objective: Amisulpride is a novel atypical antipsychotic withpreferential affinity for presynaptic dopaminergic D2and D3receptors. There have been no clinical studies conducted withamisulpride in schizophrenia in Turkey. The aim of this open-labelstudy was to compare the efficacy and safety of amisulpride andhaloperidol in patients with schizophrenia.Methods: Forty patients with schizophrenia according to DSM-IVcriteria were included in the study. Patients were randomized to eitheramisulpride (n=20; 400-800 mg/d) or haloperidol (n=20; 15-30 mg/d)treatment. Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), BriefPsychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), and Clinical Global Impressions (CGI)were used at days 0, 3, 7, 14, and 28 of treatment. Side effects wererecorded on UKU forms. Serum prolactin levels were measured atbaseline and at sixth week of treatment. Results: There were nosignificant differences in terms of improvement of PANSS, BPRS andCGI scores between the groups. While patients on amisulpride hadno acute dystonia (p=0.01), and had significantly milder parkinsonism(p