Letter: Treatment of delusional parasitosis with sertindole

Authors' reply

“…However, other first-generation antipsychotics with relatively long half-lives did not differ from those with shorter half-lives. Experience with second-generation antipsychotics with long half-lives is limited to one case with partial remission to sertindole 3 and one recent case treated with paliperidone. 4 The level of efficacy of second-generation antipsychotics in delusional parasitosis is less than certain.…”

Delusional parasitosis presenting as folie à trois: successful treatment with risperidone

“…The clinical presentation is variable, ranging from a lack of cutaneous findings to multiple excoriations resembling nodular prurigo 4 . There have been some case reports of patients using knives to try and extract the parasites from their skin and, in one case, a patient used a blowtorch 5 …”

“…4 There have been some case reports of patients using knives to try and extract the parasites from their skin and, in one case, a patient used a blowtorch. 5 Patients are quick to change doctor if they sense that their belief is not shared by the practitioner and, due to lack of insight, patients are usually very resistant to the idea of psychiatric assessment. Although patients are not typically violent towards others, there has been a reported case of a woman who attempted to murder her family doctor for refusing to treat her.…”

Dermatozoenwahn bei Multisystematrophie

“…Die Berücksich-tigung des 5-HT2-Antagonismus scheint für die wirksame pharmakologische Behandlung eine wichtige Voraussetzung zu sein. Kasuistische Mitteilungen über die Therapie des Dermatozoenwahns mit Sertindol [17] und Risperidon [2] berichten von einer guten Wirksamkeit und Verträglichkeit. Bei der Behandlung mit atypischen Neuroleptika gibt es bisher nur wenig Erfahrungen.…”