A Male Case of Monosymptomatic Hypochondriacal Psychosis Responding to Olanzapine

Abstract

We report the case of a 62-year-old man with monosymptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis who failed to respond to paroxetine treatment. Olanzapine addition brought about dramatic improvement in the patient's condition and thereafter paroxetine withdrawal further eliminated his psychosis. These findings suggest that olanzapine itself may be effective for the treatment of monosymptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis. Further controlled studies are required, but this is the first report describing an olanzapine effect in a male patient with monosymptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis.

Psychotherapies for hypochondriasis

“…Other forms of psychotherapy based on theories of psychodynamic or interpersonal conflict could potentially be useful. A variety of psychotropic medications, including antidepressants, benzodiazepines and antipsychotics have been used (Barsky 2001, Ikenouchi 2004, Lorenzo 2004. There is also a case report of the use of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) (Newmark 2004).…”

Olfactory reference disorder—a review

“…There are no randomised controlled trials on the use of psychotropics in ORD. There have been reports of specialists using antidepressants of various classes [30][31][32][33], both typical and atypical antipsychotics [34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41], as well as combinations of antipsychotics and antidepressants [42][43][44]. Various degrees of success have been reported with individual and combination therapy.…”