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| |  ANA: Quetiapine Effective for Psychosis Associated with Lewy Body Dementia By Thomas S. May Special to DG News NEW YORK, NY -- October 15, 2002 -- Quetiapine is effective in the treatment of psychosis associated with Lewy body dementia (LBD), according to a study presented here October 14 at the 127th annual meeting of the American Neurological Association. Dr. Andrius Baskys and colleagues at the Veterans Affairs Health Care System, in Long Beach, California, United States, studied 10 male patients (mean age 73 years) diagnosed with LBD who were not taking neuroleptic medication. Patients received 25-150 mg/day of quetiapine for a period of 12 weeks, and were evaluated at baseline and after 3, 6, 9, and 12 weeks of treatment. The mean quetiapine dosage was 26.3 mg/day at baseline and 51.7 mg/day at 12 weeks. Eight patients completed all 12 weeks of the study. Outcome measures included the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Functional Assessment Questionnaire (FAQ), Mini Mental Status Exam (MMSE), Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), Abnormal Inventory Movement Scale (AIMS), and the Simpson-Angus Scale (SAS). The results showed that quetiapine significantly reduced overall NPI scores at weeks 3, 6, 9, and 12 (p<0.03). Additionally, combined hallucinations, suspiciousness, irritability, and agitation subscale scores of the BPRS were reduced by 36±11 percent (p<0.03) at 6 weeks and 46±13 percent (p<0.02) at 12 weeks. There were no significant cardiovascular or other side effects associated with the treatment, the investigators found. These findings suggest that quetiapine may be an effective and well-tolerated therapeutic agent for the treatment of psychosis associated with LBD, the researchers concluded. “Although larger placebo-controlled studies of quetiapine in patients with Lewy body dementia will be needed to confirm our findings, our initial results offer new treatment options for these difficult and fragile patients,” Dr. Baskys said. He also noted that no other antipsychotic drug, either typical or atypical, has been shown to be safe and effective in the treatment of hallucinations and behavioural disturbances associated with LBD. "Further studies of quetiapine's effects in these patients may offer new insights into mechanisms of behavioural abnormalities associated with neurodegenerative disorders," he added. The research was funded in part by Astra Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, manufacturers of Quetiapine (Seroquel).
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