Hemoperfusion for chronic schizophrenia: preliminary psychiatric results
Kinney, M.J.; Varga, E.; Varga, V.; Tarter, R.; Sugerman, A.A.; Nilsen, S.; Gupta, G.
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 42(4): 175-177
1981
ISSN/ISBN: 0160-6689 PMID: 7009594 Document Number: 180840
Six patients with chronic schizophrenia unresponsive to accepted therapy were assigned randomly to receive as adjunctive therapy either (A) weekly coated-charcoal hemoperfusion (CCHP) or (B) sham hemoperfusion (Sham HP) in a double-blind study using two independent psychiatric raters. Four weeks of treatment suggested that (1) CCHP was associated with significant improvement in some psychiatric measures, (2) improvement was early in the treatment course, and (3) neither CCHP nor Sham-HP was associated with deterioration in any of the psychiatric measures. When one patient from each group was "crossed-over" to receive the opposite treatment these conclusions were supported. Further studies appear to be warranted.