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It has been well established that more than 40 percent of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) do not improve after an adequate trial with serotonin uptake inhibitors (SUIs). The first purpose of this trial was to compare the short-term efficacy and safety of two different strategies in a sample of treatment-refractory OCD patients: dose increase of the ongoing treatment versus the addition of another SUI. The second purpose was to investigate the short-term efficacy and safety of adjunctive risperidone in SUI-refractory OCD patients. Thirty-three OCD patients who were unimproved after a short-term treatment with clomipramine (150 mg/day) were admitted to the study. In the first part of the study, the dose increase of clomipramine was compared with sertraline addition, in an open-label manner. The addition of sertraline to the ongoing treatment appeared to be more effective and tolerable than the clomipramine dose increase. Seven (50%) of the 14 patients who were considered nonresponders after the first part of the study, showed good clinical improvement and good tolerability after risperidone augmentation. These results suggest that risperidone addition to ongoing SUIs may be useful in augmenting pharmacologic response in OCD.

In this paper the authors analyse transexualism from a psychopathological, nosographic and clinical point of view. The re-examine the theories on the subjects elaborated by a number of authors and describe the clinical characteristics of the syndrome, paying special attention to problems relating to differential diagnosis. Moreover, they present the results ofa study carried out in a personal series of cases. The sample studied included 11 male transsexual subjects. The latter were evaluated through psychiatric interview and a questionnaire aimed at obtaining information on the following topics: the subjects' social and affective relations; their childhood experience; their perception and acceptance of themselves; the meaning, characteristics, localisation and experience of sexual pleasure. The results are discussed and compared with those of national and international literature on this subjects.

After having examined the main studies which suggest the existence of correlations between anxiety, depression and cephalagia, the authors report the results of a study performed in a sample population of some three hundred subjects. During the presentation and discussion of results they also comment on some of the main psychodynamic theories relating to the etiology of idiopathic cephalea. In particular, they examine the theories which relate the onset of cephalea to the inhibition of thought and those which instead connect the onset of cephalea to aggressiveness. The present study also comments on possible interpretative models along Individual-psychology lines concerning stress-related somatisation.

Although a large body of evidence indicates the efficacy of pharmacotherapy in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a considerable percentage of these patients do not respond. Very few studies focus on factors related to treatment response of OCD. The purpose of this study was to investigate which clinical factors are related to drug treatment response in OCD.We examined 53 OCD patients treated with either clomipramine or fluoxetine for a period of 6 months, dividing the sample into "responders" and "nonresponders" to treatment. At admission, patients were evaluated using a semistructured clinical interview, the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety. We then compared acute-phase patient characteristics and response to drug treatment. Response was defined as a decrease of at least 40% in the Y-BOCS total score and a rating of "improved" or "very improved" on the Clinical Global Impressions scale within 16 weeks of treatment and maintained over three consecutive evaluations.By the sixth month of treatment, 31 patients (58.5%) responded to either clomipramine or fluoxetine. Nonresponders had lower age at onset and longer duration of the disorder; in addition, they showed higher frequency of compulsions, washing rituals, chronic course, concomitant schizotypal personality disorder, and previous hospitalizations. A worse response to drug treatment was predicted in a stepwise multiple regression by (1) concomitant schizotypal personality disorder, (2) presence of compulsions, and (3) longer illness length.Our findings suggest that there are distinct types of OCD with respect to drug treatment response. They provide indirect evidence of treatment specificity by identifying characteristics responsive to different modalities, which may be of value in the selection of patients for alternative treatments.

A 2-year, open-label followup was performed on 130 obsessive-compulsive patients who were responders to a previous 6-month treatment with clomipramine (150 mg/day), fluoxetine (40 mg/day), or fluvoxamine (300 mg/day). Continuation treatment with the same daily dose was compared to continuation with half doses or to discontinuation of pharmacotherapy. The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and the Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) scale were used every 3 months, or whenever a worsening of symptoms was experienced. Maintenance treatments were found significantly superior to discontinuation in preventing relapses, and no differences in efficacy were found between full and half doses. A comparison of the three subgroups of patients who were withdrawn from drug therapy failed to demonstrate any statistical difference.

The efficacy of clomipramine and selective serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is now established. However, few studies are available on long term treatment strategies in patients with OCD. In this article, recent literature on drug discontinuation and maintenance treatment of OCD is reviewed and discussed. All studies which have evaluated recurrence rates after drug discontinuation have found that up to 80% of patients who respond to SSRIs relapse if the medication is withdrawn. The studies that have been performed on long term treatment of OCD with both clomipramine and SSRIs show that patients who continue medication maintain and slightly increase the level of improvement achieved in short term trials. Several authors suggest that, in maintenance treatment, drug dosages can be reduced to between 40 and 60% of those used in acute episodes without a significant difference in symptom improvement. Preliminary data concerning drug tolerability in patients receiving long term treatment for OCD indicate that SSRIs are well tolerated, and that the rate of adverse effects tends to decrease compared with short term treatment. Several recent reports suggest that patients who have taken SSRIs for at least 2 months are at risk of developing withdrawal symptoms when treatment is discontinued. However, no data are available concerning the relationship between the duration of OCD treatment and the onset of withdrawal symptoms.