A Randomized Controlled Trial of Acetazolamide for Patients With Treatment Resistant Schizophrenia
Vishwajit Nimgaonkar, MD PhD
Summary
This is a double blind adjunctive randomized controlled trial for schizophrenia using acetazolamide.
Description
Schizophrenia (SZ) afflicts over 21 million people worldwide. Persons with SZ have a 10% suicide rate and their lifespan is curtailed by over 25 years. There is an urgent need for efficacious antipsychotic drugs (APDs), particularly, second line drugs, because only 30-40% of APD-treated patients attain remission and 30% of patients show little or no response. Currently, Clozapine is the only reliable second line APD, but it can cause serious blood dyscrasias. To fill the void, the investigators have conducted systematic reviews of prior data and in silico searches. In a prior double-blind cros…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 18–55 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Written informed consent. * Both genders, ages 18-55 years (older patients may not tolerate high ACZ dose). * PANSS total score \> 60 and Score \> 4 on one or more items of the 'positive' syndrome items (P1-P7), following treatment at therapeutic doses for 6 weeks with different APDs on 2 occasions. * Stable dose of antipsychotic drug (APD) for \> 1 month, continued throughout the study. * Not participating in another randomized controlled clinical trial (RCT). Exclusion Criteria: * Substance abuse in the past month/dependence past 6 months with the exception of methad…
Interventions
- DrugAcetazolamide
ACZ 250 mg/day in gelatin capsules will be administered initially and increased over 7-10 days to 2g/day.
- DrugPlacebo
Identical gelatin capsules will be prepared by filling with inert excipients.
Locations (2)
- University of PittsburghPittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- St John's Medical College HospitalBangalore