This subanalysis of the Switch to Risperidone Microspheres (StoRMi) clinical trial, an international, 6-month, open-label investigation of long-term efficacy and safety of risperidone long-acting injectable (RLAI), focuses on a subset of non-acute schizophrenic adult patients switching from oral or depot conventional antipsychotic.

Efficacy assessments included Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), quality of life, treatment satisfaction, hospitalization rates, and treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs).

Patients switching from oral (n=100) or depot (n=565) conventional medication were identified. Total PANSS scores decreased by 15.3 +/- 17.5 (SD) points for patients switching from oral conventional (n=96) and 9.1 +/- 19.5 points for those switching from depot conventional medication (n=550) (P=0.0001 for both). Improvements were noted for patients switching from either oral or depot agents for PANSS subscales, GAF score, quality of life, and hospitalization. Treatment was completed by >70% of patients. About 25% of patients were satisfied with their treatment at baseline compared with about 70% at endpoint after switching to RLAI. Overall RLAI was well tolerated. The most frequent TEAEs (>5%) were: anxiety (11.0%), insomnia (9.0%), weight increase (6.0%), extrapyramidal disorder (5.0%), depression (5.0%) and disease exacerbation (5.0%) for patients switching from oral conventional, and weight increase (6.0%) and disease exacerbation (5.3%) for patients switching from depot conventional medication.

In this open-label study, patients with schizophrenia who were unsatisfactorily treated with oral or depot conventional antipsychotics showed improvement in symptom control, tolerability, and patient satisfaction after switching to RLAI.