Augmentation of Antipsychotic Partial Responders With Tetrabenazine

Since the 1950's, antipsychotics have been used as the mainstay treatment to control symptoms of schizophrenia. However, soon after their introduction it became apparent that a substantial number of individuals show a less than optimal response to these drugs - as many as 30% of schizophrenics using conventional antipsychotics derive little benefit. Furthermore, 'atypical' generation antipsychotics such as clozapine which proves to be the most beneficial for partial responders and represents the cornerstone of treatment-resistant schizophrenia, offers a response rate as low as 30% in those showing an inadequate response. Moreover, many individuals decline clozapine as an option, or cannot tolerate it.

For these reasons, augmentation strategies play an important role in the treatment of antipsychotic partial responders. We have systematically reviewed the different augmentation options, and reached the conclusion that most such strategies are theoretically speculative and empirically unsupported.

At the same time though, we recognize that augmentation strategies are common practice in the clinical setting. With so many individuals showing only a partial response to antipsychotic treatment (typical or atypical), it has become a practical reality in efforts to offer further improvement. Often, this come in the form of adding one or even more antipsychotics, although the evidence for such an approach is less than compelling and neuroimaging from our centre has cautioned against this approach.

With a variety of other potential augmentation strategies available, we have chosen to focus on tetrabenazine (TBZ), which is currently licensed here in Canada for the management of hyperkinetic movement disorders.

The choice of TBZ as an augmentation strategy arises from several lines of investigation: