U. To Test Drug on Adolescents

By Lois M. Collins Deseret Morning News

While many people with schizophrenia first show symptoms in the late teens, testing of possible treatments for youths lags behind testing for adults. Now the University of Utah’s Mood Disorders Clinic is one of 53 sites running clinical trials of a treatment to see if it is effective in adolescents.

The drug, aripiprazole, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat adults with schizophrenia in 2002.

The U. hopes to enroll 10 adolescents, age 13 to 16, who have schizophrenia and are willing to participate in the 10-week trial, with the option at the end of extending for another six months, according to Dr. Poonam Soni. But it won’t be easy, she said, and they’d be happy to get even four patients. It’s not a diagnosis doctors make lightly because of a perceived stigma.

“The problem is people view it as an illness that robs one of life. It can appear in youths, before they are yet productive, and run a chronic course,” she said. “That’s not completely true, though. A certain number are very severe and some less so.”

Until the Clinton administration, testing wasn’t done at all in younger subjects. That doesn’t mean those young people weren’t given prescriptions for the drugs, though. Because they were approved for adults, doctors sometimes prescribed them for teens. It has been the same story with medications for women. Often testing was done in men and some medications, in fact, turned out not to work as well in women. That’s why testing in target populations is crucial, she said.

Study subjects will be divided in thirds, with one group getting a placebo, another low-dose aripiprazole and the final group a higher dose, said Soni, an assistant professor and an investigator at the Mood Disorders Clinic.

The study will look at whether it is safe and effective to use aripiprazole in teenagers with schizophrenia.

It is important to learn about adolescent schizophrenia and successful ways to treat it, since it is in the adolescent years that so much of the disease appears. “In the process, we can also better educate the community on the symptoms of schizophrenia and what parents can do if they think their teen is experiencing any of the signs,” Soni said.

Schizophrenia is marked by extreme changes in mood, energy and behavior.

For information on the study, call 801-585-6663 (MOOD).

E-mail: lois@desnews.com