Fluphenazine and Tardive Dyskinesia

To the Editor.—  In connection with the study of Kane et al,¹ we would like to refer to our previous study, which was presented at the Third World Congress on Biological Psychiatry² and was only published in Hungarian.³ In a double-blind study, Kane et al compared a low-dosage regimen of fluphenazine decanoate (1.25 to 5.0 mg every two weeks) with the standard-dosage regimen (12.5 to 50 mg every two weeks) and reported on the relapse rate and abnormal involuntary movements. The relapse rate was considerably higher in the low-dose group, but their results were encouraging with regard to the movement disorders.In our study,^2,3 we carried out a tardive dyskinesia (TD) prevalence study on 88 outpatient schizophrenics receiving depot neuroleptics (fluphenazine decanoate, flupentixol decanoate, and fluspirilene). The patients were in good mental condition and had not had any relapse for at least three months, with most