Effective management of
schizophrenia remains a significant clinical challenge. While
antipsychotic medications have proven efficacy in this disease, there remains an opportunity to further improve symptom control and long-term
relapse prevention. Also, a number of factors, including tolerability and complex dosing regimens, can result in nonadherence to medication.
Quetiapine is an atypical
antipsychotic with proven efficacy and an established tolerability profile in
schizophrenia. The once-daily
extended-release formulation (
quetiapine XR) offers a simplified dosing regimen and titration schedule. Short-term clinical studies have shown that
quetiapine XR (400-800 mg/d) is efficacious in the acute treatment of
schizophrenia, while a long-term study has shown that
quetiapine XR was significantly more effective than placebo at preventing relapse. Furthermore, an investigation in which stable patients switched from the immediate-release formulation (
quetiapine IR) to
quetiapine XR showed that
quetiapine XR is generally well tolerated and has no loss of efficacy compared with
quetiapine IR. In patients who experienced insufficient efficacy or poor tolerability on their previous
antipsychotic, switching to
quetiapine XR significantly improved efficacy compared with the previous treatment. In conclusion,
quetiapine XR is an effective and generally well tolerated treatment for
schizophrenia. Furthermore, once-daily dosing may improve patient adherence, which may impact positively on patient outcomes.