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This page is an AI-assisted Turkish summary of the study presented at the 26th World Congress of Psychiatry. The study belongs to the presenting authors; please refer to the original source when citing it.

RCT-RITS: a large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled add-on trial of rituximab in psychosis and preliminary findings

Rct-rits, a large, randomised placebo-controlled add-on trial of rituximab in psychosis: preliminary findings

The multicenter, placebo-controlled trial of adjunctive rituximab in 123 patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder was unblinded in August 2026, and preliminary findings will be presented at the congress.

Following 20 years of research into anti-inflammatory treatments for schizophrenia that has yielded inconclusive results, this study aims to evaluate rituximab, a monoclonal antibody that targets CD20-positive B cells and is widely used in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. An open-label pilot study (n=19), prompted by a single informative case report, found that rituximab appeared markedly more effective for symptoms of schizophrenia than for symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder; this finding led to the launch of a larger, multicenter, placebo-controlled add-on trial. Recruitment of 123 patients aged 18–55 years with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder was completed in January 2026. The primary endpoint was defined as the proportion of participants rated as improved (CGI-I ≤ 2.5) at 3 months (±1) after a single 1,000 mg rituximab infusion, compared with the proportion showing improvement in the placebo group. All participants were assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) at baseline and at the endpoint assessments, and qualitative interviews were conducted with participants and their relatives to capture information beyond symptom scales and questionnaires. According to the abstract, the trial was unblinded in August 2026, when the second endpoint, following 6 months of patient follow-up, was reached, and preliminary findings will be presented at the congress; no numerical results were reported. The speakers state that an effective treatment for psychosis would provide substantial benefits to patients and society by reducing the need for inpatient and involuntary treatment, improving long-term functional outcomes, and enabling participation in society.

All WCP 2026 summaries