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. 2017 Mar 15;2017:2402731. doi: 10.1155/2017/2402731

Table 2.

Details for 7 cases which were considered at least probable catatonic episodes secondary to clozapine withdrawal.

Authors Catatonic symptoms Treatment Other catatonia episodes1
Lee and Robertson [15] Restless, impulsive aggressive, disoriented disturbed sleep, refusal to wear clothing, staring, periodic posturing mannerisms, irrelevant speech, and uncontrollable laughing Oral lorazepam 8 mg/day did not work
Clozapine restarted 10 days after catatonia
Symptoms resolved in 3 weeks
No

Yeh et al. [16] Stupor, mutism, waxy flexibility,
staring, posturing,
negativism, and nil oral intake
Trihexyphenidyl 2–4 mg/day
Clozapine restarted to 175 mg/day within 2 weeks
Catatonia resolved in 7 days
One future

Bastiampillai et al. [17] Urine/feces incontinence,
mutism, mannerisms, stupor,
posturing fever, diaphoresis, and autonomic instability
IM lorazepam unknown dosages
Treated for 48 hours with no response
ECT response started in the 4th session
Major improvement in the 10th session
One past

Thanasan and Jambunathan [18] Tremors in upper limbs,
unresponsive to call or commands,
febrile, flat affect, mute, and
cogwheel and general rigidity
Bromocriptine from 2.5 to 15 mg/day (33 days)
Oral diazepam for 6 days
Improvement by day 12
No

Wadekar and Syed [19] Fixed gaze, minimal withdrawal from pain, and Bush-Francis scale score 6/14 Lorazepam 1 mg IV with brief improvement
Lorazepam 3 mg/day on days 1 and 2
Restarted on clozapine 25 mg/day on day 2
On 200 mg/day of clozapine by day 5
Rapid improvement on day 4
No

Kumar et al. [20] Nil oral intake, quiet, mutism, posturing, and waxy flexibility Lorazepam for 2 days
ECT started on day 3 and improvement after 4 ECTs
Discharged on risperidone 4 mg/day
No

Wang et al. [21] Excitement, mutism, posturing, staring, negativism, and echolalia2 Inpatient admission with clozapine reinstitution Four on clozapine withdrawal and five on lorazepam withdrawal3

ECT: electroconvulsive therapy; IM: intramuscular; IV: intravenous.

1Other catatonic episodes after clozapine withdrawal in the past or the future.

2On four previous occasions in the immediate period following clozapine cessation, the patient developed florid psychotic symptoms in the form of persecutory, grandiose delusions, disorganized behavior, and auditory hallucinations. She displayed catatonic features (Bush-Francis scale of 20 indicating severe catatonia).

3The patient initially had 4 episodes of catatonia after clozapine withdrawal. Then, she had 5 episodes of catatonia after lorazepam withdrawal, which were the focus of the article.