13 - Biological treatment of schizoaffective disorders

Summary

Introduction

One example or model of the overlap of affective and schizophrenic spectra could be assumed to be the schizoaffective disorders (SAD). This topic is extensively dealt with in the first chapter of this book, so to avoid redundancy we refer to this chapter as well as to books extensively discussing the topic, such as Marneros and Tsuang 1986, 1990, Marneros, et al. 1995a, Marneros and Angst et al., 2000 as well as Marneros and Goodwin, 2005 a, b (see Chapter 1 references).

In contrast to schizophrenia and recurrent affective disorders, SAD is rarely the focus of treatment guidelines. The standard textbooks of psychopharmacology contain no chapters on the treatment of schizoaffective disorders (e.g., Schatzberg and Nemeroff, 2004). Therefore, this chapter aims at summarizing the results pertaining to acute and long-term treatment of SAD. After a brief methodological part, the results regarding acute treatment of SAD episodes will be reviewed followed by an overview of SAD long-term treatment. The chapter will end with a summary of preliminary treatment guidelines that can be inferred from the data reviewed.

Methods of review

This review is restricted to the efficacy and effectiveness of pharmacological treatments for schizoaffective disorders. Methodologically it is a non-systematic update of the most recent systematic review of SAD long-term treatment (Baethge, 2003a).