Comparison between clozapine, an atypical antipsychotic agent and haloperidol, a conventional agent used to treat schizophrenia

Asiya Rehman Atif¹, Muhammad Jawed², Syed Muhammad Shahid³*, Shah Ali Ul Qader³ and Afsheen Aman³

¹Department of Pharmacology, Liaquat College of Medicine and Dentistry, Karachi-Pakistan.

²Department of Biochemistry, Liaquat College of Medicine and Dentistry, Karachi-Pakistan.

³The Karachi Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (KIBGE), University of Karachi, Karachi-Pakistan

*Corresponding author. E-mail: drsmshahid@gmail.com, smshahid@uok.edu.pk. Tel: 9221-99261180-3. Fax: 9221-34823886-7.

Accepted 21 December, 2009

 Abstract

An observational and comparative study was conducted to compare the functional outcome between the patients treated with conventional antipsychotic agent haloperidol and atypical antipsychotic agent Clozapine (clozaril). A total of 32 patients were included in the study with established schizophrenia according to (DSM iv). The data was processed on SSPE 10^th version. The primary outcome measure was the improvement of negative symptoms of schizophrenia and secondary outcome measure was to observe the superiority of the atypical drug Clozapine over conventional agent haloperidol regarding side effects. Patients were assessed at baseline, 2^nd and 8^th week, using four tools of assessment. For treatment group receiving haloperidol mean was 47.2 ± 11.50 at 8^th week and for Clozapine treatment group mean was 38.0 ± 15.39. The P values for all the parameters in the Clozapine group were significant as compared to haloperidol.

Key words: Clozapine, haloperidol, schizophrenia, dopamine receptors, antipsychotic agents.