[Maintenance pharmacotherapy of schizophrenia: remission and the effectiveness of long-acting risperidone therapy].

Unlabelled: Schizophrenia is a severe and devastating psychiatric disorder affecting about 1 percent of the world's population, is characterized by psychotic episodes, negative symptoms and cognitive deficits. New advances in the understanding of schizophrenia etiology, course, treatment have increased interest in the development of consensus-defined standards for clinical status, improvement, remission and recovery. The introduction of standardized remission criteria may offer significant opportunities for clinical practice and clinical trials. Risperidone is the first atypical antipsychotic available in a long-acting injectable formulation. Clinical studies have demonstrated that long-acting risperidone is effective and well tolerated in patient with schizophrenia. Significant clinical improvement has been reported in patients switched to long-acting risperidone from other antipsychotic agents. Several patient groups (young, first episode, schizoaffective patients) have been shown significant benefit from long-acting risperidone. Special patient groups, including, the insufficient efficacy, the partial compliance, the suffering from side effect may benefit from treatment with long-acting risperidone. This treatment should improve the compliance and achieve remission and functional recovery.

Keywords: schizophrenia, remission, long-acting atypical antipsychotic.