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- Title
Aripiprazole A Review of its Use in the Management of Schizophrenia in Adults.
- Authors
Croxtall, Jamie D.
- Abstract
Oral aripiprazole (Abilify®) is an atypical antipsychotic agent that is approved worldwide for use in adult patients with schizophrenia. It is a quinolinone deriv- ative that has a unique receptor binding profile as it exhibits both partial agonist activity at dopamine D2 receptors and serotonin 5-HT1A receptors and antagonist activity at 5-HT2A receptors. In several well designed, randomized, clinical trials of 4-6 weeks duration, aripiprazole provided symptomatic control for patients with acute, relapsing schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Furthermore, following 26 weeks' treat- ment, the time to relapse was significantly longer for patients with chronic, stabilized schizophrenia receiving aripiprazole compared with those receiving placebo. Using a variety of efficacy outcomes, aripiprazole showed a mixed response when evaluated against other antipsychotic agents in randomized clinical trials. Longer-term data showed that improvements in remission rates and response rates favoured aripiprazole over haloperidol, although, the time to failure to maintain a response was not significantly different between the treatment arms. On the other hand, improvements in positive and negative symptom scores mostly favoured olanzapine over aripiprazole, although, the time to all-cause treatment discontinuation was not significantly different between the two treatments. Several open-label, switching trials showed that aripiprazole provided continued control of symptoms in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Using a variety of efficacy outcomes or quality-of-life scores, longer- term treatment generally favoured patients switched to receive aripiprazole compared with standard-of-care oral antipsychotics. Aripiprazole was generally well tolerated in patients with schizophrenia. In particular, its use seems to be associated with a lower incidence of extrapyramidal symptoms than haloperidol and fewer weight-gain issues than olanzapine. Aripiprazole also showed a favourable cardiovascular tolerability profile and its use was associated with a reduced risk of metabolic syndrome than placebo or olan- zapine. As a consequence, aripiprazole may provide a more cost-effective treat- ment option compared with other atypical antipsychotics. In conclusion, oral aripiprazole provides an effective and well tolerated treatment alternative for the acute and long-term management of patients with schizophrenia.
- Subjects
ARIPIPRAZOLE; SCHIZOPHRENIA treatment; NEUROTRANSMITTERS; HALOPERIDOL; DOPAMINE antagonists
- Publication
CNS Drugs, 2012, Vol 26, Issue 2, p155
- ISSN
1172-7047
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2165/11208400-000000000-00000