Centbutindole is a new
antipsychotic agent related to butyrophenone group. The
drug is
dopamine antagonist but it also blocks 5HT(2) receptors. Clinically the
drug has passed through phase I, II & III clinical trials successfully and it has shown effective
antipsychotic activity in schizophrenic patients. In the present study the
drug was compared with
risperidone in a double blind manner for a period of 8 weeks to assess the efficacy in schizophrenic patients. Patients of
schizophrenia evaluated on PANSS, CGI & UKU side effect rating scale weekly Out of 44 patients included in study, 38 completed the trial. The intergroup comparison of two drugs showed that centbudindole and
risperidone have similar onset of
antipsychotic action as both the drugs showed significant decrease in the total PANSS score as well as positive syndrome score, negative syndrome score and general psychopathology score from 2nd week onwards. The scores in both the groups showed a steady and significant decline from 2nd week to 8th week of study. The present study showed that
centbutindole has similar improvement on clinical global impression with
risperidone. The side effect profile was similar in the two drugs except
dystonia (5 patients in
centbutindole vs 1 patient in
risperidone group). The findings of present study shows that
Centbutindole could be used as a promising new
drug for treatment of
schizophrenia in place of a typical
antipsychotics as it has shown improvement on negative symptoms similar to
risperidone.