Treatment of Acute Psychosis Caused by Isotretinoin: Systematic Review

Background: Isotretinoin is an oral medicine prescribed for the management of severe acne that is insensitive to conventional therapy, including systemic antibiotics. Acute psychosis refers to a severe mental illness characterized by a loss of touch with realism, visions, delusions, confused thinking, and abnormal behaviors. The study aims to analyze and document these cases to better understand the potential relationship between isotretinoin use and the development of acute psychosis, as well as to find out which therapy is best for treating this problem.

Methods: We searched the following electronic databases independently with no linguistic or date limit: PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Serbian Citation Index (SCIndeks).

Results: Our results included 14 studies (13 case reports and 1 cohort study) with 18 individual cases. The oldest patient was 27 years old, and the youngest was 13 years old. Both genders were represented with 9 individuals each.

Conclusion: We can conclude that, in addition to discontinuation of isotretinoin, therapy with olanzapine and eventually risperidone could improve the symptoms of psychosis caused by isotretinoin.

Cite this article as: Stanojkovic T, Zivkovic Zaric R, Lesnjak I, et al. Treatment of acute psychosis caused by isotretinoin: Systematic review. Psychiatry Clin Psychopharmacol. 2024;34(2):103-108.