Efficacy of Haloperidol and Clonidine Combination in the Treatment of Chronic Schizophrenia

Kim, Hyeong Seob; Yi, Hye Soon; Song, Jin Woo; Lee, Joo Ho

Abstract

OBJECTIVE
This study was designed to investigate the efficacy in the combination of haloperidol and clonidine with chronic schizophrenia. Moreover, we evaluated the effects of clonidine to the plasma haolperidol and reduced haloperidol concentration 36 patiens were entered on 4 weeks by the double blind trial. METHOD: The patients (male=11, female=25) were randomly divided into two groups of eighteen patients each. Their antipsychotic medication was fixed for 2 weeks before double blind trial with haloperidol and clonidine or placebo. Clonidine was started at 0.15 mg/day and then raised 0.6mg/day during 4 days, and the placebo was applied by same method as clonidine. The clinical assessment of the patients was assessed with BPRS and NOSIE. The plasma concentrations of haloperidol and reduced haloperidol were measured by HPLC (UV detector).
RESULTS
1) There were no statistical differences in sex distribution, age, duration of illness, dosages of haloperidol, plasma concentration of haloperidol and reduced haloperidol of each groups before clonidine or placebo trial. 2) On total and subcluster scores of BPRS and total score of NOSIE, there were decreased tendencies over the time, but there was no statistical significance in both groups. 3) Plasma concentrations of haloperidol and reduced haloperidol after 4 weeks of clonidine trial were revealed statistically significant increasement as compared to baseline.
CONCLUSION
The combination of haloperidol and clonidine for 4 weeks did not reveal the improvement. In our opinions the reasons of those results were that our samples were not made of paranoid type of schizophrenia, the duration of clonidine trial was not good enough. So we should suggest that more specifying design will be needed.