When the protocol was written, a hospital chart Bcl-2 inhibitor review to estimate possible participants for the study was conducted. The initial chart review suggested that approximately 20% of the clinical patient population were possible participants. In this chart review, we were unable to estimate patients’ attitude towards study drugs. When inclusion was initiated, the main barrier to inclusion was either patients’ or clinicians’ concern for metabolic Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical side effects of olanzapine [Citrome et al. 2011]. Many of the screened patients had been offered treatment with olanzapine previously, but had refused due to concerns about side effects. Sertindole had been withdrawn due to concerns
about increased cardiac mortality and had been reintroduced shortly before initiation of the current study [Peuskens et al. 2008]. Despite the early concern of cardiac mortality, most patients and clinicians were positive towards potential treatment Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical with sertindole. Gallhofer and colleagues compared sertindole with haloperidol in a 12-week study with
reaction time Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical decomposition and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) as outcome measures. Participants treated with sertindole did significantly better in all subtests of the reaction time decomposition test than participants treated with haloperidol. A similar pattern was seen in the WCST, except for the non perseverative errors, for which sertindole and haloperidol Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical did not differ at study end point in this study of 34 participants [Gallhofer et al. 2007]. Nielsen and colleagues compared adjunctive treatment with sertindole or placebo with an original treatment with clozapine and did not show any difference in cognitive outcomes between the groups [Nielsen et al. 2012]. More than 25 randomized trials on patients diagnosed with schizophrenia have been conducted comparing olanzapine with other antipsychotic drugs with most studies being against atypical antipsychotic drugs only. Some studies investigated the effects Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of olanzapine compared with typical antipsychotic drugs only, and other studies had
both typical and atypical drugs as comparator drugs. No uniform patterns of change in cognitive function in specific domains were found in patients treated with olanzapine. Due to a low inclusion rate, the number of participants proposed by power calculation was not reached (N = L-NAME HCl 100). Our study did not show any of the comparator drugs being superior on cognitive outcomes or PANSS. The low inclusion rate increased the risk of type II error, but a simple sign test did not shown any of the comparator drugs trending towards being superior on the majority of tests. Our study did not evaluate previous educational level or job training, which could have influenced the participants’ ability to perform the cognitive tests.