Schizophrenia is a disease causing suffering for patients and persons close to them. A treatment that works is essential for a relatively normal life. One in five patients do not respond to traditional neuroleptics whereas clozapine treatment may work instead. However, this treatment requires regular hematologic monitoring which can be troublesome and even frightening for a schizophrenic person where paranoia and delusions are common symptoms.
A position of trust
As a psychiatrist you sometimes may have to balance benefits of a treatment against inevitable disadvantages. With schizophrenia, a functioning and effective medical treatment could mean life close to normal. An efficient drug in the treatment of schizophrenia, one that has also been shown to help many patients where traditional neuroleptics have no effect, is clozapine. Since granulocytopenia and agranulocytosis are potential serious side effects, regular hematological monitoring is required. However, considering that paranoia and delusions are common symptoms in schizophrenia, traditional test situations at a hospital may seem intimidating for the patient. Instead of looking for other treatment alternatives, testing for white blood cell count in a non-hospital environment, using only a capillary sample has shown better patient acceptance.
Solutions at hand
With HemoCue WBC DIFF System you can monitor the patient’s white blood cell count at the point of care. The system gives an immediate result with laboratory accuracy:
- Monitoring of white blood cell count in treatment with the substance clozapine
