Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Aug 19, 2022; 12(8): 1108-1111
Published online Aug 19, 2022. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v12.i8.1108
Cardiotoxicity of current antipsychotics: Newer antipsychotics or adjunct therapy?
Zheng Liu, Mo-Lin Zhang, Xin-Ru Tang, Xiao-Qing Li, Jing Wang, Li-Liang Li
Zheng Liu, Mo-Lin Zhang, Xin-Ru Tang, Xiao-Qing Li, Jing Wang, Li-Liang Li, Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China
Author contributions: Liu Z gathered the literature and drafted the manuscript; Zhang ML, Tang XR, Li XQ, and Wang J designed the table; Li LL conceived the original idea and edited the manuscript; all authors participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for its content and provided final approval of the version that was submitted.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 82070285 and No. 81701861.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Li-Liang Li, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Teacher, Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, No. 131 Dongan Road, Shanghai 200032, China. liliangli11@fudan.edu.cn
Received: February 23, 2022
Peer-review started: February 23, 2022
First decision: April 18, 2022
Revised: April 19, 2022
Accepted: July 6, 2022
Article in press: July 6, 2022
Published online: August 19, 2022
Processing time: 176 Days and 5.3 Hours
Abstract

Use of newer antipsychotics for substitution of current antipsychotics might be one way awaiting to be clinically verified to address antipsychotic cardiotoxic effects. Alternatively, the combination of existing antipsychotics with cardioprotective agents is also beneficial for patients with mental disorders for avoiding cardiotoxicity to the maximum.

Keywords: Antipsychotics; Cardiotoxicity; Combined medication; Adjunct therapy

Core Tip: The newer antipsychotics have been reported to have fewer side effects and better performance in efficacy in short-term studies. Still, a dilemma lies between the benefit of ameliorating psychotic symptoms and severe side effects especially life-threatening cardiotoxicity in antipsychotic medications in clinical practice. The combination of antipsychotics with other therapeutic agents providing cardioprotection, such as β-blockers, cannabinoid 1 receptor antagonists, cannabinoid 2 receptor agonists, spliceosome inhibitors, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, and ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, may represent a promising strategy and sweet pledge.