The Application of Multiplex Biomarker Techniques for Improved Stratification and Treatment of Schizophrenia Patients
In the case of major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, shortcomings in the conversion of scientific discoveries into newer and safer treatment options has led to a loss of confidence and precipitated a crisis for large pharmaceutical companies.
- PDF / 447,713 Bytes
- 17 Pages / 504.57 x 720 pts Page_size
- 26 Downloads / 157 Views
1
Introduction Schizophrenia is a debilitating, mental health disorder which can strike individuals in their late teens or early adulthood and seriously impair medical health, quality of life, social well-being and productivity [1]. Clinical presentation usually occurs with symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, anhedonia, social retreat, disorganized thinking and cognition impairment. At present, diagnosis is still based on expression of symptoms and is dependent on communications between the affected individual and the attending clinician or psychiatrist. This is usually achieved in an interview-like format using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) [2] or the International Classification of Diseases (ICD10) [3] criteria as guidelines. However, these texts can only detail
Paul C. Guest (ed.), Multiplex Biomarker Techniques: Methods and Applications, Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 1546, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4939-6730-8_2, © Springer Science+Business Media LLC 2017
19
20
Johann Steiner et al.
Treatment of schizophrenia New paradigm Personalised care
Switch drug again Switch drug Select drug
Disease severity
Disease severity
Old paradigm Reacve care
Treat with right drug Diagnosis/prognosis
Diagnosis
Monitoring
Predisposion screening Time Diagnose disease Treat symptoms Costly trial & error treatment
Time Health management Molecular screening Early detection Rapid effective treatment Improved quality of care
Fig. 1 Comparison of the old and new treatment paradigms involving schizophrenia patients, distinguished by the use of biomarkers for improved stratification
the symptoms of schizophrenia without pointing to the underlying molecular physiological pathways that may be affected. Furthermore, classification of a person as having schizophrenia can be confounded by the fact that individuals with other psychiatric disorders can share many of the same symptoms. For this reason, there are now concerted efforts to identify specific multiplex biomarker fingerprints that can potentially predict the onset of schizophrenia, improve diagnostic accuracy, monitor disease progression, and guide treatment options. The availability of such tests for use in blood serum or plasma would be ideal as this would facilitate use in clinical settings. This is because blood-based biomarkers would have high accessibility in clinical practice due to the low invasiveness of the sampling procedure and the low associated costs. The application of biomarker-based diagnostic tests that can accurately classify patients according to the type of disorder or even disease subtype will help to reduce duration of untreated mental illness and improve individual responses by placing the right patients on the right treatments as early as possible. This is because there is a direct correlation between longer periods without treatment and poor outcomes [4]. It is thought that this will change the overall paradigm from reactive psychiatric care to a more optimized personalized treatment approach in the field
Data Loading...
