What the trial was testing
The ADVANCE enrolled 403 patients with schizophrenia. The study was sponsored by ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. and tracked outcomes across the full group of patients who matched the trial's eligibility profile.
It was initial testing (phase 2). Trials at this stage are designed to produce evidence regulators and physicians can act on — not just observations to follow up later.
What the results showed
Patients on pimavanserin improved 2 points more on a negative symptom scale than those on placebo.
The lancet. Psychiatry · 2022 · NCT02970305
These findings — that greater reduction in withdrawal and motivational symptoms on a 16-item scale — were published in the The lancet. Psychiatry and represent the headline result of the study.
Researchers tracked outcomes across 403 patients enrolled in the trial. The result was consistent enough across the group that the team felt confident reporting it.
What this means for patients
For patients with schizophrenia, this result changes the calculus on what to ask their care team about. Whether it changes day-to-day care depends on factors like disease subtype, prior treatments, and where the patient is in their care journey.
What you can do now
If you have schizophrenia with severe withdrawal or motivation problems, this treatment showed a small benefit when added to your current medication. However, the improvement was modest and the researchers say more work is needed to see if it makes a meaningful difference in daily life. This pill is not yet FDA-approved for schizophrenia. Talk to your psychiatrist about whether joining a trial or waiting for more research makes sense for you.
Eligibility for the treatments mentioned above depends on specific test results and clinical history. Bring this summary, the trial name, and your most recent labs or pathology report to your next visit.
Open schizophrenia trials
EEG and Behavioral Correlates of Temporal Prediction in the Tactile Modality in Schizophrenia
Patients with schizophrenia have disturbances in their sense of self, particularly their bodily self. Disorders of the sense of self are central to schizophrenia and are of interest because they are thought to be present prior to the development of the disorder, when only a few attenuated symptoms signal a risk of developing psychosis. Finding markers related to the sense of self would make it possible to predict which subjects, among those with minimal psychotic symptoms, will develop psychosis, and thus to better adapt management. Disturbances in the experience of the passage of time that accompany disturbances in the sense of self have been described particularly in subjects at risk of developing psychosis, and would predict the onset of the pathology. However, as with alterations in the sense of self, it can be difficult to get patients to describe their disturbances in the experience of time, and objective measures are required to facilitate detection of these disturbances. In the present protocol an objective measure of temporal perception mechanisms will be tested in relation to the sense of self. The tests used in the protocol assess subjects' abilities to benefit from the passage of time and to use these abilities to predict and prepare for the occurrence of an event. The investigators have previously shown that patients with impaired bodily sense of self do not benefit from the passage of time to prepare themselves to process information in the future. The present protocol is aimed at developing a measure more sensitive to the patients' disorders by adding tactile measures.
RCT Comparing Avatar Intervention to Supportive Intervention to Reduce Cannabis Use in Patients With Psychotic Disorders
The goal of this clinical trial is to conduct a single-blind randomized controlled trial to verify whether the Avatar Intervention has greater efficacy over supportive intervention to reduce cannabis use in patients with psychotic disorders.