Prednisolone Addition for Patients With Recent-onset Psychotic Disorder
Status:
Terminated
Trial end date:
2019-05-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Treatment with prednisolone can be used as a proof of concept to investigate the possibility
of immune modulation as a treatment for schizophrenia. It is expected that daily treatment
with prednisolone in addition to antipsychotic treatment reduces psychotic symptoms and
improves cognition, as compared to placebo. The investigators propose to investigate the
effects of administering the corticosteroid prednisolone versus placebo in addition to
standard antipsychotic medication in patients with early stage schizophrenia or related
disorders, hypothesizing that a decrease in the overall low-grade cerebral inflammation due
to prednisolon treatment will be expressed as a decrease in overall symptom severity.,
Secondly, addition of prednisolone is hypothesised to slow down cognitive deterioration in
recent-onset psychosis patients. Finally, the investigators aim to determine whether indirect
immunological parameters of the hypothesised low grade inflammation status in schizophrenia
are shifted due to the addition of prednisolone.