Korean Journal of Biological Psychiatry

Current treatment strategies for levodopa-induced psychosis in advanced Parkinson’s disease have had limited success. Reduction or discontinuation of levodopa and coadministration with dopamine-blocking neuroleptics may attenuate the psychotic symptoms, but these strategies are associated with worsening of parkinsonian symptoms. Administration of 5-HT3 receptor antagonist；ondansetron, a newer strategy to attenuate psychosis of Parkinson’disease without motor deterioration was introduced. A 41-year-old young-onset male, who was diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease 7 years ago, was treated with levodopa therapy, and had levodopa-induced psychosis(delusion, hallucination, paranoid, insomnia). After trial of ondansetron, he showed improvement in the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale(from 21 points to 9 points) in spite of increasing the dosage of levodopa. With ondansetron, we could increase the dosage of levodopa without psychotic complications(esp, hallucination), and he showed improvement in the motor fluctuation.

Keywords Levodopa-induced psychosis;5-HT3 receptor antagonist;Ondansetron.