Fifty-six schizophrenic patients at the moment of their suicidal attempt were compared to a control group of 60 patients. Schizophrenic suicidal attempters showed an identifiable clinical profile at the acute phase. Two main groups could be differentiated in regard to their reasons (depressive or psychotic) for attempting suicide.

The author investigated the differences between schizophrenia patients with and without a major depressive episode (MDE) using the Japanese Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenics. The total depression score was correlated with the dosage of antipsychotics in patients without an MDE, but such a correlation was not found in patients with an MDE.

A female patient with multiple sclerosis (MS) suffered from an acute psychotic disorder after taking distigmine bromide for detrusor dysfunction. She showed a dramatic relief of her symptoms after the medication, distigmine bromide, was stopped. Distigmine is not supposed to penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB). However, in MS patients a leakage of the BBB could be hypothesized.

A single case of a patient suffering from a first psychotic episode and the differential diagnoses between affective and psychosis is performed throughout the combined use of peripheral serotonergic markers and clinical psychopathological scales during a 6-months follow-up. The results suggest the need of performing further studies combining biological and clinical markers of psychiatric disorders.

Clozapine is indicated for the treatment of patients intolerant of conventional antipsychotic agents. It is often used to treat those patients who have developed movement disorders while on conventional antipsychotics. We report three cases of dyskinesia associated with clozapine induction. We suggest a mechanism that might explain an underlying dopaminergic hypersensitivity during this transitional period. Further, we identify groups that might be at high risk of developing dyskinesia and suggest strategies to reduce risk especially in these groups.

In the present open prospective study the effects of quetiapine were investigated in two elderly patients with parkinsonism and psychosis. Treatment induced a marked antipsychotic effect that coincided with an improvement of general motor functioning. These findings support the idea that quetiapine may be preferentially of use in the elderly with parkinson’s disease and psychotic symptoms.

The aim is to study motives and factors associated with treatment drop-out in an ambulatory psychiatric service, which integrates medical, social, familial and rehabilitation treatments. Only 9% of the psychotic patients dropped out, whose motives were non-compliance with medication and unawareness of illness, and the associated factors were comorbidity of substance abuse, social isolation and male gender.

There is some evidence that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) may be effective in treating depression. Using an intensive methodology of rTMS in two drug-resistant patients, we observed a good antidepressant effect, but also, induction of manic symptoms.

Tuberculosis (TB) increasingly appears in a multidrug-resistant form (MDR-TB) in Europe, too. Treatment remains difficult due to various side effects of the multi-drug-regimens. Ciprofloxacin is widely used as one of the few TB-second-line drugs. We report on the course of a ciprofloxacin-induced acute psychosis in a patient with MDR(isoniazid, streptomycin)-TB which resolved after cessation of ciprofloxacin treatment and introduction of a novel oxazolidone. Careful treatment considerations particularly in patients with additional predisposing factors to neuropsychiatric symptoms are recommended in the potentially dangerous MDR-TB, thus creating an enormous therapeutic challenge.