Sertindole in the treatment of psychosis in schizophrenia: efficacy and safety.

Evidence from clinical trials supports the claim that sertindole is a potent antipsychotic drug at a dose of 12-24 mg/day. Its action against positive symptoms is as potent as that of the traditional antipsychotic haloperidol. Its action against negative symptoms is significantly different from that of placebo and quantitatively larger than that of haloperidol. Its most distinctive characteristic is a reduction in motor side effects over a whole range of comparable drug and comparator doses. More work is needed to determine whether sertindole's actions against negative symptoms influence the primary or the secondary negative system. There are insufficient data at present to compare sertindole with the highly efficacious drug clozapine or the other new antipsychotic olanzapine.