Ziprasidone in the treatment of delusional parasitosis.

Delusional parasitosis is characterized by a patient's fixed false belief of being infested with parasites or small creatures. The first-line treatment options are typical antipsychotics such as pimozide. However, the accompanying extrapyramidal side effects might limit their use. We report on a patient with a good response to pimozide combined with ziprasidone. Ziprasidone is an atypical antipsychotic drug with a lower risk of extrapyramidal symptoms; thus, it might be considered a good first or second treatment option for delusional parasitosis.

[Perilymph gush. A complication of stapedectomy]. / Chorro de perilinfa. Complicación de la estapedectomía.

Report of an unusual complication of stapes surgery, called "perilymph gush", resolved with improved hearing and no vertigo.

[Subtypes of schizophrenics patients with attempted suicide]. / Subtipos de pacientes esquizofrénicos con tentativas suicidas.

INTRODUCTION: During the last decades, numerous research works have tried to determine what risk factors are associated with the schizophrenic patient's suicidal behavior but they have yielded contradictory results. Thus we hypothesized that these results' variability could be due, among other reasons, to the heterogeneity of suicidal schizophrenic population. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Thirty-two Schizophrenics patients who had made Attempted suicide were studied. They were assessed through a battery of Clinical scales for negative, positive, hopelessness, insight and depressive symptoms. RESULTS: Two suicidal subtypes were identified according to the reasons that patients stated for attempting suicide. These two subtypes showed significant differences in two of the analyzed variables, namely hopelessness and PANSS positive subscale. DISCUSSION: Clinical implications coming from these results are discussed in the present paper.

[Gushers. Perilymphatic leaks]. / Chorro de perilinfa. Complicación de la estapedectomía.

We report an unusual complication of stapedectomy called <>. It was resolved and the patient's hearing level improved without vertigo.

Hypofrontality in schizophrenia: influence of normalization methods.

1. Studies with Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) in schizophrenia research have utilized different approaches to normalization of data, such as cerebellar ratio and whole brain ratio methods, leading to conflicting findings. 2. The authors compared these two methods to test the hypofrontality hypothesis of schizophrenia. 3. Eighteen chronic and medicated DSM-IV schizophrenic patients and 10 healthy controls underwent two SPECT examinations using 99mTc HMPAO as a tracer at baseline and during frontal activation while applying the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. 4. The hypofrontality hypothesis was supported with both indexes of relative perfusion, although the whole brain ratio method appeared to be more reliable and specific than the cerebellar ratio method. 5. Further studies are required to confirm these preliminary results on the specificity and sensitivity of both methods.