Second generation antipsychotics (SGAs) for non-psychotic disorders in children and adolescents: A review of the randomized controlled studies

In children and adolescents the Second Generation Antipsychotics (SGAs) represent the class of psychotropic drugs whose use has grown more significantly in recent years: they are primarily used for treatment of patients with disruptive behavior disorders, mood disorders and pervasive developmental disorders or mental retardation. In order to compare the efficacy and tolerability of antipsychotics against placebo or each other, a systematic Medline/PubMed search for randomized, double blind studies on SGA in patients younger than 18 years of age at enrolment, was conducted. Papers on schizophrenia, discussed in another article of this specific issue, were excluded by the efficacy analysis. A set of standard efficacy and safety indices, such as treatment effect sizes (ES), the Numbers Needed to Treat (NNT) and Numbers Needed to Harm (NNH), was used to compare medications. 32 studies analyzing efficacy and/or tolerability of SGAs in children and adolescents with bipolar, autistic or disruptive behavior disorders, and Tourette syndrome were identified. SGAs efficacy on mania, extreme mood variability, irritability, aggression and disruptive behavior appears to be greater than for psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia: average NNT was 2–5, whereas for schizophrenia it varies between 3 for risperidone and 10 for olanzapine, quetiapine, and aripiprazole.As for schizophrenia, different SGAs show a similar efficacy for specific non-psychotic disorders, but they significantly differ in their safety profile. In randomized studies, adverse effects were usually relatively minor, easily predictable and manageable, whereas long-term open-label studies have indicated that some adverse event, such as the metabolic effects, may be severe and potentially life threatening on the long-term. Taken together, these findings suggest that the choice of a specific treatment should be guided primarily by the safety profile of specific antipsychotics, considering specific risk factors (i.e. obesity and BMI, family history of diabetes or cardiovascular disorder, etc) for the single patient.