Clinical note on the Possible use of Clomiphene Citrate in Recurrent Psychosis

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Abstract
Clomiphene citrate is a drug which may induce ovulation in anovulatory women. Its use in women with recurrent psychoses is suggested by the observation that such women frequently display menstrual irregularities such as amenorrhoea or anovulatory cycles during their disturbed phases. The author has investigated the use of this drug in three women with recurrent psychoses who were studied for a minimum of 30 months prior to testing. Each of these women showed menstrual irregularities and had a psychosis with an abrupt onset in the second half of the menstrual cycle. In each case a beneficial behavioural change commenced during the latter half of the first menstrual cycle regulated by clomiphene. Patient B. W., prior to the use of clomiphene, had a well-established periodic catatonia which occurred approximately every 37 days; during the half-year that she received cyclical clomiphene therapy there was a radical alteration in the pattern of her illness followed by a disappearance of its major features. J.W. a schizophrenic, and A.C. a manic-depressive, both emerged from prolonged withdrawn states when menstrual function was restored with clomiphene. The tendency of recurrent psychoses to remit spontaneously makes the author cautious in advancing his claim that clomiphene citrate is an effective therapeutic agent in this type of malady. If the work is confirmed it will have importance not only therapeutically but also theoretically.