Extrapyramidal Side Effects with Atypical Antipsychotics?

While not definitive, these results corroborate the clinical experience of fewer EPS with atypical antipsychotics.

Atypical antipsychotics are believed to have a substantially lower risk of extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) than neuroleptics, making atypicals more acceptable to patients, but some studies have not confirmed the initially reported magnitude of benefit. These researchers attempted to estimate the frequency of EPS with antipsychotic treatment of schizophrenia by examining coprescriptions of antiparkinsonian drugs and 14 antipsychotics in Taiwan’s national claims database from 1999 to 2003.

Of 98,320 hospitalizations of 40,561 patients with schizophrenia, there were 37,483 hospitalizations in which patients received a single antipsychotic drug (the rest received antipsychotic combinations). Antiparkinsonian drugs were 1.8 times as likely to b…

Reviewing Author

Steven Dubovsky, MD