Frequency of recovery from anorexia nervosa of a cohort patients re-evaluated on a long-term basis following intensive care.

The need to treat the acute onset of anorexia nervosa in a specialty unit is well known, but nevertheless, even "clinically recovered" patients show a high rate of relapse. The aim of our study was to re-evaluate various clinical (hemoglobin, transferrin, insulin-like growth factor I, TSH, PRL, gonadotropins and 17 beta-estradiol) and psychiatric [semistructured interview, Eating Disorder Inventory (EDI) Test] parameters in 19 female anorexic patients hospitalized in our department from 1983 to 1993 (with a 9-year median prior to the present study) for the treatment of anorexia nervosa, and to compare these results with those of a previous follow-up performed on the same subjects in 1993. In the present evaluation, no significant variation was found among the clinical, nutritional and hormonal parameters when compared to those of the first follow-up in which all parameters had improved with the exception of the PRL levels, which were significantly low. Meanwhile, the percentage of patients with spontaneous menses increased significantly from 50% to 70%, while the number of patients on psychopharmacological therapy decreased significantly throughout the study. Furthermore the percentage of patients with altered (severe or mild) EDI profiles decreased to 50%. This study emphasizes the positive prognostic role of hospitalization and intensive care in a cohort of anorexic patients. The present study, in addition to demonstrating both a general maintenance of body weight acquired over the years, albeit in the lower normal range, and an increase in the percentage of patients with a regular menstrual cycle, also highlights the persistence of psychiatric abnormalities in a large number of patients, even in those diagnosed as "clinically recovered", thus suggesting the need for long-term psychiatric care.