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Minerva Psichiatrica 2005 March;46(1):55-66

Copyright © 2005 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: Italian

New psychotropic drugs and treatment of borderline personality disorder: a review of mood stabilizers and second-generation antipsychotics

Bellino S., Paradiso E., Zanon C., Zizza M., Bogetto F.

The focus of pharmacotherapy in the treatment of patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) is to manage vulnerability traits, symptoms and comorbid conditions. Treatment strategies of BPD target different domains of psychopathology, such as cognitive-perceptual, affective, and impulsive-behavioural disturbances. The present paper is a review of literature data concerning the use of new psychotropic drugs in the treatment of this disorder, particularly focusing on mood stabilizers and second-generation antipsychotics. Accord-ing to available studies and guidelines, mood stabilizers, including anticonvulsants, seem to be effective in controlling impulsive-aggressive behaviour and mood instability, while atypical antipsychotics are mainly indicated in the management of cognitive-perceptual disturbances. However, research on this issues is still limited. Clinical trials have been performed on small group of patients, and many were open label pilot studies without a control group.
In this paper, results and limits of these studies are critically analyzed and a series of open questions are proposed for oncoming investigations.