Response to chlorpromazine treatment may be associated with polymorphisms of the DRD2 gene in Chinese schizophrenic patients

Previous studies have demonstrated that the -141C Ins/Del and TaqI A polymorphisms in the DRD2 gene affect the density of the dopamine D2 receptor. The present study examines the correlation between these two polymorphisms and the therapeutic response to chlorpromazine, a typical antipsychotic drug, in 135 inpatients with schizophrenia. Clinical symptoms were evaluated using the Brief Psychiatry Rating Scale (BPRS) before and after 8 weeks of treatment with 300-600 mg/day of chlorpromazine. Our results show that genotyping -141C Ins/Del may help to predict the efficacy of chlorpromazine treatment (P = 0.01) due to the fact that patients with no Del allele showed greater improvement than those with Del allele on the overall BPRS (P = 0.03), and that, therefore, the potential for therapy in patients with schizophrenia is related to the -141C Ins/Del polymorphism, in the DRD2 gene. However, no such relationship was found for the TaqI A polymorphism. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.