A review of antipsychotic therapy effectiveness and tolerability among individuals with copy number variants relevant to schizophrenia.

Abstract

Although numerous copy number variants (CNVs) are considered pathogenic with respect to the development of schizophrenia, only eight loci have reached genome-wide significance. Reviews/studies characterizing antipsychotic use in this context exist for only three corresponding CNV syndromes. As these disorders also predispose to neurodevelopmental anomalies and various medical comorbidities, affected individuals may be particularly sensitive to the side effects of antipsychotic medications. As such, this review sought to identify and describe all reports of antipsychotic use among individuals with the other genome-wide significant schizophrenia risk CNVs (2p16.3 deletions/NRXN1 variants, 15q13.3 and 16p11.2 deletions, 7q11.23 duplications, and 1q21.1 deletions or duplications). Only 10 eligible articles describing 29 individuals were included. While treatment response was reasonably good for most individuals, despite variability existing across the specific CNV syndromes, side effects were rarely reported. Above all, this review highlights the need for more case reports/series to be published.