New antipsychotics in long-term treatment of schizophrenia

Schizophrenia continues to have a poorer prognosis than other affective disorders. Optimal long-term treatment offers the opportunity to optimise the long-term prognosis with the aim to minimise the number of relapses and reduce the residual symptoms. Atypical neuroleptics have various advantages over the classical neuroleptics. The first depot formulation of an atypical neuroleptic appears to represent a further step forward to improve the possibilities of long-term treatment of schizophrenia.