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QUETIAPINE
This section is designed to inform professionals.
(Consumers, see Fact Sheet on Quetiapine)
Available as Seroquel.
- Used in Schizophrenia, Bipolar Mania and Bipolar Depression.
- It is an atypical antipsychotic agent which blocks Dopamine Type II and Serotonin Type II receptors.
- There is large inter-individual dose variability to gain a therapeutic effect.
Use in Pregnancy
Category C
- There is limited data regarding the safety of Quetiapine in pregnancy.
- There is only one prospective study (1). In this 36 women were treated with Quetiapine and there appeared to be no increased risk of major malformations. These are small numbers.
- Gentile (2, 3) has twice reviewed the evidence for the use of atypical antipsychotics in pregnancy and concluded that there is insufficient data regarding the safety of Quetiapine in pregnancy.
Use in Lactation
Category L3
- There have been a limited number of case reports (7 mother-infant pairs) which suggest that Quetiapine is safe in breastfeeding, (4, 5, 6).
- If the dose was under 75mg per day none could be detected, by the assay used, in the breast milk (5).
References
(1) McKenna K; Koren G; Tetelbaum M; et al (2005) Pregnancy outcome of women using atypical antipsychotic drugs: a prospective comparative study. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 66 (4): 444-9
(2) Gentile S. (2004) Clinical Utilization of atypical antipsychotics in pregnancy and lactation.
The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, Vol 38 (7-8), pp. 1265-71
(3) Gentile S (2006). Prophylactic treatment of bipolar disorder in pregnancy and
breastfeeding: focus on emerging mood stabilizers. Bipolar Disorders; Vol. 8 (3), pp 207-20.
(4) Lee A. Giesbrecht E et al (2004) Excretion of Quetiapine in Breast Milk. Am J Psychiatry 161:9 1715-1716
(5) Misri S., Corral M et al (2006) Quetiapine Augmentation in Lactation. A series of case reports. J Clin. Psychopharm 26:5 508-511
(6) Rampono J. Kirstensen JH et al (2007) Quetiapine and Breast Feeding. The Annals of Pharmotherapy 41:711-714.
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