Effectiveness of anti-psychotics and related drugs in the Huntington French-speaking group cohort.
PLoS One
; 9(1): e85430, 2014.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-24454865
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE:
Huntington's disease is a rare condition. Patients are commonly treated with antipsychotics and tetrabenazine. The evidence of their effect on disease progression is limited and no comparative study between these drugs has been conducted. We therefore compared the effectiveness of antipsychotics on disease progression.METHODS:
956 patients from the Huntington French Speaking Group were followed for up to 8 years between 2002 and 2010. The effectiveness of treatments was assessed using Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) scores and then compared using a mixed model adjusted on a multiple propensity score.RESULTS:
63% of patients were treated with antipsychotics during the survey period. The most commonly prescribed medications were dibenzodiazepines (38%), risperidone (13%), tetrabenazine (12%) and benzamides (12%). There was no difference between treatments on the motor and behavioural declines observed, after taking the patient profiles at the start of the drug prescription into account. In contrast, the functional decline was lower in the dibenzodiazepine group than the other antipsychotic groups (Total Functional Capacity 0.41 ± 0.17 units per year vs. risperidone and 0.54 ± 0.19 vs. tetrabenazine, both p<0.05). Benzamides were less effective than other antipsychotics on cognitive evolution (Stroop interference, Stroop color and Literal fluency p<0.05).CONCLUSIONS:
Antipsychotics are widely used to treat patients with Huntington's disease. Although differences in motor or behavioural profiles between patients according to the antipsychotics used were small, there were differences in drug effectiveness on the evolution of functional and cognitive scores.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Antipsychotic Agents
/
Huntington Disease
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Incidence_studies
/
Observational_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
En
Journal:
PLoS One
Year:
2014
Document type:
Article