Typical vs. Atypical Antipsychotics for Early-Onset Schizophrenia: It’s a TEOSS-Up

In the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE; JW PsychiatryOct 5 2005 and Dec 29 2006), typical and atypical antipsychotics showed similarly poor results in an adult population. To learn about childhood-onset illness, researchers conducted the Treatment of Early-Onset Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders (TEOSS) study, which involved 119 participants aged 8 to 19 years with schizophrenia, schizoaffective, or schizophreniform diagnoses (27% older than 15; 65% male). They were randomly assigned to the typical antipsychotic molindone or the atypicals olanzapine or risperidone for 8 weeks. Dosing was flexible (molindone, 10–140 mg; olanzapine, 2.5–20.0 mg; risperidone, 0.5–6.0 mg). Benztropine was administered with moli…