Hormone profile in acute psychotic disorders: A cross-sectional comparison of serum hormone concentrations in treated and untreated male patients with schizophrenia

Background: Antipsychotic drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia provide effective treatment of psychotic symptoms but might lead to neuroendocrine abnormalities.Objective: the aim of this study was to assess hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis function by comparing serum hormone profiles of newly admitted patients with psychotic disorders who were receiving antipsychotic drugs with those who were antipsychotic-drug-free during the preceding 6 months.Methods: Adult male patients admitted during a 1-year period (December 1999 to December 2000) to I of 2 Brazilian public psychiatric inpatient units that provide care for severely ill patients were eligible for this cross-sectional study if they had a diagnosis of schizophrenia based on the criteria given in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and a score > 24 on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. On the morning after admission, serum concentrations of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), prolactin, free testosterone (FT), and total testosterone (TT) were determined. A commercial laboratory provided the normal serum hormone concentrations of healthy Brazilian men in the same age range as that of the study patients.Results: Sixty-three adult male patients, aged 18 to 55, were included in the study. Forty-eight (76.2%) patients (mean [SD] age, 30.6 [8.9] years) were receiving antipsychotic drugs (treated). Fifteen (23.8%) patients (mean [SD] age, 36.5 [9.8] years) were antipsychotic-drug-free for 6 months before admission (untreated). the only significant between-group difference was for disease duration (treated, 7.6 [8.1] years vs untreated, 12.3 [9.7] years; P = 0.044). Treated patients were more likely to have higher dispersed serum hormone concentrations than the untreated patients. Serum concentration of FSH was numerically higher in the treated patients than in the untreated patients, although the difference was not statistically significant. Compared with the control group (1436 men and women for prolactin; 226 men for LH; 207 for FSH; 128 for TT; 128 for FT; and 128 for SHBG), patients in the treated group had significantly different mean [SD] serum concentrations of all hormones (treated vs control: prolactin, 24.3 [23.7] mu g/L vs 6.8 [0.12] mu g/L, P < 0.001; LH, 4.9 [3.4] U/L vs 3.3 [0.13] U/L, P = 0.001; FSH, 4.4 [3.9] U/L vs 3.0 [0.06] U/L, P = 0.025; TT, 17.5 [7.8] nmol/L vs 20.1 [1.64] nmol/L, P = 0.004; FT, 0.056 [0.08] nmol/L vs 0.06 [0.003] nmol/L, P < 0.001; and SHBG, 33.3 [18.9] nmol/L vs 48.4 [1.45] nmol/L, P = 0.002). Compared with the control group, patients in the untreated group had significantly different mean (SD) serum concentrations of all hormones except FSH and TT (untreated vs control: prolactin, 19.9 [12.8] mu g/L vs 6.8 [0.12] mu g/L, P = 0.001; LH, 6.0 [1.9] U/L vs 3.3 [0.13] U/L, P = 0.002; FT, 0.08 [0.04] nmol/L vs 0.06 [0.003] nmol/L, P = 0.001; and SHBG, 26.6 [11.6] nmol/L vs 48.4 [1.45] nmol/L, P < 0.001). No differences were found between the TT distribution curve of the control group and that of the untreated patients.Conclusion: This study supports further investigation of a potential difference in the HPG axis among treated and untreated patients with schizophrenia and those who do not have that condition.Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Psychiat, São Paulo, BrazilBristol Myers Squibb Co, São Paulo, BrazilFed Univ Pelotas, Dept Psychiat, Pelotas, BrazilEli Lilly Brazil, São Paulo, BrazilPax Clin Psiquiatrica, Goiania, Go, BrazilUniv Fed Bahia, Dept Psychiat & Neurol, Salvador, BA, BrazilUniv Fed Bahia, Dept Pharmacol, Salvador, BA, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Psychiat, São Paulo, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Estratégias de enfrentamento do estresse ocupacional na ótica de enfermeiros emergencistas

A descriptive exploratory study was aimed at, using field research as a source of information, a qualitative approach on the stressors of nurses working in adult emergencies and the capture of different experiences related to the topic. The research scenario will be a general hospital in the Baixada Fluminense that performs urgent and emergency care. The subjects will be nurses and the sample selection will be by spontaneous demand during the workday, individually, where the research objectives will be clarified. The script will be answered at your home, along with the semi-structured questionnaire. After reading the reports, the themes identified for the construction of the results and the elaboration of the analysis categories will be described.Objetivou-se de um estudo exploratório descritivo, tendo como fonte de informação a pesquisa de campo, a abordagem qualitativa sobre os fatores estressores do enfermeiro atuante em emergência adulta e a captação de diferentes experiências relacionadas ao tema. O cenário da pesquisa será um hospital geral da baixada fluminense que realiza atendimentos de urgência e emergência. Os sujeitos serão enfermeiros e a seleção da amostra será por demanda espontânea durante a jornada de trabalho, de forma individual, onde serão esclarecidos os objetivos da pesquisa. O roteiro será respondido em sua residência, junto com o questionário semiestruturado. Após a leitura dos relatos, serão descritos os temas identificados para a construção dos resultados e a elaboração das categorias de análise

O uso de aromaterapia durante o trabalho de parto: uma revisão integrativa: The use of aromatherapy during labor: an integrative review

Objetivo:Descrever os estudos sobre o uso da aromaterapia no alívio da dor durante o trabalho de parto. Método: Realizou-se revisão integrativa de literatura, na Base de Dados de Enfermagem (BDENF), Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (Medline/PubMed), National Institutes of Health&nbsp;(NIH) e Scientific Electronic Library Online&nbsp;(SciELO). Incluíram-se texto completo disponível, artigo original, da publicação entre 2017 e 2022, disponíveis nos idiomas português e inglês e dentro da temática sugerida na pesquisa, e os critérios de exclusão de resumos publicados em anais de congresso, pesquisas in vitro e outras doenças relacionadas ao eixo temático. Resultados: A busca e a seleção dos artigos científicos, foi estabelecido da seguinte forma: encontrados 80 publicações e excluídos 103 por não atenderem aos critérios de elegibilidade previamente definidos, restando, assim, 12 publicações. Após a leitura criteriosa dos títulos e resumos, excluíram-se 45 artigos, restando apenas 12 artigos completos e incluídos nesta revisão integrativa. Conclusão: Os métodos não farmacológicos, como é o caso da aromaterapia tem servido de para o alívio da dor, ansiedade, estresse e dentro outros sintomas desconfortáveis inerentes ao trabalho de parto. Nos estudos analisados a utilização de OE durante o trabalho de parto, apresentou um efeito adverso mínimo ou nulo para o binômio mãe-recém-nascido

Alterações cognitivas na infecção pelo HIV: uma revisão sistemática: Cognitive changes in HIV infection: a systematic review

Provocada pelo vírus da imunodeficiência humana, com a síndrome da imunodeficiência adquirida, numa pessoa tem o seu sistema imunológico prejudicado, tornando-se suscetível a outras doenças e infecção. Tem-se a estimativa de que 50% dos infectados com o referido vírus podem sofrer alterações cognitivas. Diante disso, este estudo tem como objetivo refletir sobre mudanças estruturais cerebrais e comprometimento cognitivo em pacientes com HIV. Portanto, trata-se de uma revisão sistemática de literatura, desenvolvida a partir da seleção de estudos nas bases de dados Scielo, Pubmed e BVS/Medline a partir do uso de descritores DeCS/MeSH e aplicação de critérios de inclusão e exclusão. Após a análise e interpretação dos dados, concluiu-se que há uma significativa prevalência de HAND em adultos infectados por HIV, no que se refere a alterações cognitivas, especialmente entre pacientes do sexo feminino, de baixa escolaridade e renda, com diagnóstico tardio e baixa quantidade de linfócitos CD4 no início do tratamento. Entre essas pessoas, revelam-se comprometimentos quanto à memória, atenção, controle de impulsos, velocidade de processamento e motora, dentre outros

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AIM: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery. METHODS: This was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin. RESULTS: Overall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P < 0.001). After adjustment, delay was not associated with a lower rate of complete resection (OR 1.18, 95% CI 0.90-1.55, P = 0.224), which was consistent in elective patients only (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.69-1.27, P = 0.672). Longer delays were not associated with poorer outcomes. CONCLUSION: One in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease

Global burden of 369 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Background: In an era of shifting global agendas and expanded emphasis on non-communicable diseases and injuries along with communicable diseases, sound evidence on trends by cause at the national level is essential. The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) provides a systematic scientific assessment of published, publicly available, and contributed data on incidence, prevalence, and mortality for a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of diseases and injuries. Methods: GBD estimates incidence, prevalence, mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) due to 369 diseases and injuries, for two sexes, and for 204 countries and territories. Input data were extracted from censuses, household surveys, civil registration and vital statistics, disease registries, health service use, air pollution monitors, satellite imaging, disease notifications, and other sources. Cause-specific death rates and cause fractions were calculated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model and spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression. Cause-specific deaths were adjusted to match the total all-cause deaths calculated as part of the GBD population, fertility, and mortality estimates. Deaths were multiplied by standard life expectancy at each age to calculate YLLs. A Bayesian meta-regression modelling tool, DisMod-MR 2.1, was used to ensure consistency between incidence, prevalence, remission, excess mortality, and cause-specific mortality for most causes. Prevalence estimates were multiplied by disability weights for mutually exclusive sequelae of diseases and injuries to calculate YLDs. We considered results in the context of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI), a composite indicator of income per capita, years of schooling, and fertility rate in females younger than 25 years. Uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for every metric using the 25th and 975th ordered 1000 draw values of the posterior distribution. Findings: Global health has steadily improved over the past 30 years as measured by age-standardised DALY rates. After taking into account population growth and ageing, the absolute number of DALYs has remained stable. Since 2010, the pace of decline in global age-standardised DALY rates has accelerated in age groups younger than 50 years compared with the 1990–2010 time period, with the greatest annualised rate of decline occurring in the 0–9-year age group. Six infectious diseases were among the top ten causes of DALYs in children younger than 10 years in 2019: lower respiratory infections (ranked second), diarrhoeal diseases (third), malaria (fifth), meningitis (sixth), whooping cough (ninth), and sexually transmitted infections (which, in this age group, is fully accounted for by congenital syphilis; ranked tenth). In adolescents aged 10–24 years, three injury causes were among the top causes of DALYs: road injuries (ranked first), self-harm (third), and interpersonal violence (fifth). Five of the causes that were in the top ten for ages 10–24 years were also in the top ten in the 25–49-year age group: road injuries (ranked first), HIV/AIDS (second), low back pain (fourth), headache disorders (fifth), and depressive disorders (sixth). In 2019, ischaemic heart disease and stroke were the top-ranked causes of DALYs in both the 50–74-year and 75-years-and-older age groups. Since 1990, there has been a marked shift towards a greater proportion of burden due to YLDs from non-communicable diseases and injuries. In 2019, there were 11 countries where non-communicable disease and injury YLDs constituted more than half of all disease burden. Decreases in age-standardised DALY rates have accelerated over the past decade in countries at the lower end of the SDI range, while improvements have started to stagnate or even reverse in countries with higher SDI. Interpretation: As disability becomes an increasingly large component of disease burden and a larger component of health expenditure, greater research and developm nt investment is needed to identify new, more effective intervention strategies. With a rapidly ageing global population, the demands on health services to deal with disabling outcomes, which increase with age, will require policy makers to anticipate these changes. The mix of universal and more geographically specific influences on health reinforces the need for regular reporting on population health in detail and by underlying cause to help decision makers to identify success stories of disease control to emulate, as well as opportunities to improve. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 licens

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980-2017 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background Global development goals increasingly rely on country-specific estimates for benchmarking a nation's progress. To meet this need, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 estimated global, regional, national, and, for selected locations, subnational cause-specific mortality beginning in the year 1980. Here we report an update to that study, making use of newly available data and improved methods. GBD 2017 provides a comprehensive assessment of cause-specific mortality for 282 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2017. Methods The causes of death database is composed of vital registration (VR), verbal autopsy (VA), registry, survey, police, and surveillance data. GBD 2017 added ten VA studies, 127 country-years of VR data, 502 cancer-registry country-years, and an additional surveillance country-year. Expansions of the GBD cause of death hierarchy resulted in 18 additional causes estimated for GBD 2017. Newly available data led to subnational estimates for five additional countries Ethiopia, Iran, New Zealand, Norway, and Russia. Deaths assigned International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for non-specific, implausible, or intermediate causes of death were reassigned to underlying causes by redistribution algorithms that were incorporated into uncertainty estimation. We used statistical modelling tools developed for GBD, including the Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODErn), to generate cause fractions and cause specific death rates for each location, year, age, and sex. Instead of using UN estimates as in previous versions, GBD 2017 independently estimated population size and fertility rate for all locations. Years of life lost (YLLs) were then calculated as the sum of each death multiplied by the standard life expectancy at each age. All rates reported here are age-standardised. Findings At the broadest grouping of causes of death (Level 1), non-communicable diseases (NC Ds) comprised the greatest fraction of deaths, contributing to 73.4% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 72.5-74.1) of total deaths in 2017, while communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional (CMNN) causes accounted for 186% (17.9-19.6), and injuries 8.0% (7.7-8.2). Total numbers of deaths from NCD causes increased from 2007 to 2017 by 22.7% (21.5-23.9), representing an additional 7.61 million (7. 20-8.01) deaths estimated in 2017 versus 2007. The death rate from NCDs decreased globally by 7.9% (7.08.8). The number of deaths for CMNN causes decreased by 222% (20.0-24.0) and the death rate by 31.8% (30.1-33.3). Total deaths from injuries increased by 2.3% (0-5-4-0) between 2007 and 2017, and the death rate from injuries decreased by 13.7% (12.2-15.1) to 57.9 deaths (55.9-59.2) per 100 000 in 2017. Deaths from substance use disorders also increased, rising from 284 000 deaths (268 000-289 000) globally in 2007 to 352 000 (334 000-363 000) in 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, total deaths from conflict and terrorism increased by 118.0% (88.8-148.6). A greater reduction in total deaths and death rates was observed for some CMNN causes among children younger than 5 years than for older adults, such as a 36.4% (32.2-40.6) reduction in deaths from lower respiratory infections for children younger than 5 years compared with a 33.6% (31.2-36.1) increase in adults older than 70 years. Globally, the number of deaths was greater for men than for women at most ages in 2017, except at ages older than 85 years. Trends in global YLLs reflect an epidemiological transition, with decreases in total YLLs from enteric infections, respirator}, infections and tuberculosis, and maternal and neonatal disorders between 1990 and 2017; these were generally greater in magnitude at the lowest levels of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI). At the same time, there were large increases in YLLs from neoplasms and cardiovascular diseases. YLL rates decreased across the five leading Level 2 causes in all SDI quintiles. The leading causes of YLLs in 1990 neonatal disorders, lower respiratory infections, and diarrhoeal diseases were ranked second, fourth, and fifth, in 2017. Meanwhile, estimated YLLs increased for ischaemic heart disease (ranked first in 2017) and stroke (ranked third), even though YLL rates decreased. Population growth contributed to increased total deaths across the 20 leading Level 2 causes of mortality between 2007 and 2017. Decreases in the cause-specific mortality rate reduced the effect of population growth for all but three causes: substance use disorders, neurological disorders, and skin and subcutaneous diseases. Interpretation Improvements in global health have been unevenly distributed among populations. Deaths due to injuries, substance use disorders, armed conflict and terrorism, neoplasms, and cardiovascular disease are expanding threats to global health. For causes of death such as lower respiratory and enteric infections, more rapid progress occurred for children than for the oldest adults, and there is continuing disparity in mortality rates by sex across age groups. Reductions in the death rate of some common diseases are themselves slowing or have ceased, primarily for NCDs, and the death rate for selected causes has increased in the past decade. Copyright (C) 2018 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Current Therapeutic Research

p.350–363Background: Antipsychotic drugs for the treatment of schizophrenia provide effective treatment of psychotic symptoms but might lead to neuroendocrine abnormalities. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis function by comparing serum hormone profiles of newly admitted patients with psychotic disorders who were receiving antipsychotic drugs with those who were antipsychotic-drug-free during the preceding 6 months. Methods: Adult male patients admitted during a 1-year period (December 1999 to December 2000) to 1 of 2 Brazilian public psychiatric inpatient units that provide care for severely ill patients were eligible for this cross-sectional study if they had a diagnosis of schizophrenia based on the criteria given in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and a score >24 on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. On the morning after admission, serum concentrations of follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), prolactin, free testosterone (FT), and total testosterone (TT) were determined. A commercial laboratory provided the normal serum hormone concentrations of healthy Brazilian men in the same age range as that of the study patients. Results: Sixty-three adult male patients, aged 18 to 55, were included in the study. Forty-eight (76.2%) patients (mean [SD] age, 30.6 [8.9] years) were receiving antipsychotic drugs (treated). Fifteen (23.8%) patients (mean [SD] age, 36.5 [9.8] years) were antipsychotic-drug-free for 6 months before admission (untreated). The only significant between-group difference was for disease duration (treated, 7.6 [8.1] years vs untreated, 12.3 [9.7] years; P = 0.044). Treated patients were more likely to have higher dispersed serum hormone concentrations than the untreated patients. Serum concentration of FSH was numerically higher in the treated patients than in the untreated patients, although the difference was not statistically significant. Compared with the control group (1436 men and women for prolactin; 226 men for LH; 207 for FSH; 128 for TT; 128 for FT; and 128 for SHBG), patients in the treated group had significantly different mean [SD] serum concentrations of all hormones (treated vs control: prolactin, 24.3 [23.7] μg/L vs 6.8 [0.12] μg/L, P < 0.001; LH, 4.9 [3.4] U/L vs 3.3 [0.13] U/L, P = 0.001; FSH, 4.4 [3.9] U/L vs 3.0 [0.06] U/L, P = 0.025; TT, 17.5 [7.8] nmol/L vs 20.1 [1.64] nmol/L, P = 0.004; FT, 0.056 [0.08] nmol/L vs 0.06 [0.003] nmol/L, P < 0.001; and SHBG, 33.3 [18.9] nmol/L vs 48.4 [1.45] nmol/L, P= 0.002). Compared with the control group, patients in the untreated group had significantly different mean (SD) serum concentrations of all hormones except FSH and TT (untreated vs control: prolactin, 19.9 [12.8] μg/L vs 6.8 [0.12] μg/L, P = 0.001; LH, 6.0 [1.9] U/L vs 3.3 [0.13] U/L, P = 0.002; FT, 0.08 [0.04] nmol/L vs 0.06 [0.003] nmol/L, P= 0.001; and SHBG, 26.6 [11.6] nmol/L vs 48.4 [1.45] nmol/L, P < 0.001). No differences were found between the TT distribution curve of the control group and that of the untreated patients. Conclusion: This study supports further investigation of a potential difference in the HPG axis among treated and untreated patients with schizophrenia and those who do not have that condition