Hans Fabisch

Pharmacotherapy of alcohol dependence

The current pharmacotherapeutic approaches to alcohol dependence, together with the results of a number of clinical trials, are reviewed in this article. Despite the somewhat disappointing clinical results, pharmacotherapeutic interventions did lead to some small, but significant, improvements in alcohol abstinence rates.

Obsessive-compulsive symptoms in schizophrenia

phrenic patients had pathologic serum immune findings and why others had not. The psychopathology (quantified via PANSS) was dichotomized: 15 male patients with high scores in delusions and schizophrenic autism were compared with 15 male patients with low scores in these items. All of them met DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia. Serum immune screening was done with a program searchingfor autoantibodies, immune complexes, immunoglobulins and markers of cell activation. Patients with low scores for delusions and autism had significantly more pathologic immune findings. The conclusion is drawn from these data that for some subgroups of schizophrenia somatic vulnerability factors could playa more dominant role than for other subgroups.

Basic Symptoms and Their Contribution to the Differential Typology of Acute Schizophrenic and Schizoaffective Disorders

One hundred and fifty male inpatients – 128 patients with DSM-IV schizophrenia and 22 patients with DSM-IV schizoaffective disorder – were investigated, over the course of their acute psychosis, on whether there were differences in the extent of basic symptoms (measured by the Bonn Scale for the Assessment of Basic Symptoms) according to their diagnostic subtype. Another aim was to find out if the diagnostic subtypes could be discriminated by means of basic symptoms and if clusters gained from basic symptoms were in accordance with the diagnostic subtypes. Differences in basic symptoms were found between the subtypes, but a clear discrimination of diagnostic subtypes by means of basic symptoms could not be achieved. There was indication that patients with prominent delusions or auditory hallucinations reported more basic symptoms than patients with exclusively prominent disorganization.

A Case of Comorbidity between Panic Disorder and Photosensitive Epilepsy

Panic disorder and epilepsy usually are distinct entities which require different and specific therapeutic stategies. While anticonvulsant medication is the treatment of choice for seizure disorders, behavioral methods have proven to be effective in panic disorder. We here report a case of comorbidity between panic disorder and photosensitive epilepsy. Special attention is given to the different symptomatic presentations of the disorders, because a thorough knowledge of both disorders may save unnecessary diagnostic procedures. Therefore, the necessity of taking a careful patient’s history is underlined. Furthermore the different possible relationship between panic disorder and epilepsy are discussed.

Ein Wandel des Phänotyps

Von der bipolaren Störung zum Organischen Psychosyndrom mit schizophreniformer Symptomatik. Die Fallvignette zeigt, wie wichtig – auch bei chronischen psychiatrischen Krankheitsverläufen – eine begleitende somatische Kontrolle ist.

Immunological alterations in three types of schizophrenia

Immunological blood serology has been showing a manifold picture of pathological changes in patients suffering from schizophrenic disorders (DeLisi, 1986). The focus of scientific investigation has been set on zytokines and their receptors (Ganguli and Rabin, 1989; Goldstein etal., 1980; Muller etal., 1990; Villemain etal., 1989). The examination of immunoglobulins, especially antibodies against neuronal tissue (Henneberg etal., 1994), is an important part of the question, in how far immunological changes may have a causal relationship to the development of schizophrenic disorders. Another important issue concerns the search for the significance of antinuclear factors (Noy et al., 1994; O’Donnel et al., 1988; Villemain et al., 1989). Altogether the findings are rather heterogenous and there are many schizophrenic patients showing normal serological parameters.