A Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of Seroquel in Chinese Han Patients With Schizophrenia

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of seroquel in the treatment of patients with acute schizophrenia compared with risperidone by evaluating the change of PANSS total score from the baseline to week 6.

This is a rater- blind, parallel assignment, randomized and active controlled study. The subjects investigated are outpatients or inpatient with schizophrenia from the Chinese Han race. The screening phase lasts for 1 week. The eligible patients enter the next randomized treatment phase. The titration duration is 1 week. After the first week, the patients are administered with a flexible dose regimen. In this study, the effective doses range of seroquel and risperidone are 600-750mg/d and 3-6mg/d respectively and the treatment duration lasts for 6 weeks. The efficacy and safety of seroquel in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia have been confirmed by multiple double blind studies. This study is designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of seroquel in the treatment of Chinese Han patients with schizophrenia. Therefore, the single blind and active control design should be selected for this study. The drug titration method and dose are within the range specified in the instruction and patients with schizophrenia are tolerant to the drug in clinical treatment. The purpose of schizophrenic patient treatment is to improve the core symptoms, prevent suicide and other aggressive behavior, alleviate the side reactions caused by the drug, and recover the life functions of patients. Generally, the treatment in the acute phase lasts for 6 to 8 weeks. In this study, the treatment in the acute phase lasts for 6 weeks. The rating scales used in this study are standard psychiatric rating scales with good validity and are widely used in the study of antischizophrenia drugs and in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia in China. The PANSS is developed from two early rating scales, namely the brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS) and the psychiatric rating scale. The high inter-investigator reliability and repeated measurement reliability of these scales have been proved by multiple studies. The clinical global impression (CGI) is a simple but convenient global impression scale. It is applicable to any patients treated and studied by the psychiatric department. The Carlgary depression scale for schizophrenia (CDSS) is used to evaluate the depressive symptoms of patients with schizophrenia. It has good reliability and validity. The abnormal involuntary movement scale (AIMS) is another evaluation tool consisting of 12 items. The AIMS is used to evaluate the abnormal involuntary movements related to antischizophrenia drugs. The AIMS is nearly the most frequently used multi-item rating scale evaluating of tardive dyskinesia. The Simpson and Angus scale (SAS) is also a rating scale commonly used since its release in 1970. The validity of SAS has been verified in the double blind and placebo-controlled study involving two haloperidol doses.