Perry Bok Man Leung
00:00
Unknown speaker
Hi everyone, I'm Perry. At the first Congress this year, I'm presenting my ongoing work titled Neutral Exposures to Psychotropics and the Risk of Developing Neurodevelopmental Disorders, which is a population-based retrospective birth cohort study in Hong Kong.
00:15
Unknown speaker
You may ask what the importance of this work are. First, studies show that over 10% of pregnant women were exposed to psychotropics. A study from Netherland showed maternal and psychotic exposures had almost doubled in 2010s compared to 2000s.
00:31
Unknown speaker
Although there are a lot of evidence on changes in pharmacokinetics of psychotropics in pregnant women, drug trials were rarely done due to ethical reasons. This study aimed to test whether psychotropic drugs or underlying severe mental illnesses could increase risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in offsprings.
00:51
Unknown speaker
I used electronic health records in the public healthcare service in Hong Kong with over 360,000 singleton births who were born between 2004 and 2015 and followed them retrospectively until 2022. Birth episodes with prenatal exposure to psychotropics, including antipsychotics, antidepressants, anticonfulsants, and benzodiazepines were identified and classified into exposures of each drug class, such as typical and atypical antipsychotics,
01:21
Unknown speaker
SSRI and SNRI, etc. Maternal family history of schizophrenia, major depression, and bipolar disorders are adjusted. My outcomes include eight common neurodevelopmental disorders, and I used some sophisticated study design, like negative control analysis and sibling smash designs, which can compare only siblings with different prenatal exposures to account for maternal family factors, like underlying health and maternal genetic influences.
01:54
Unknown speaker
My results will have important clinical implications. First, assessing the safety of drug use is vital. Discontinuing the drugs may trigger relapses in schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses, and switching to drugs that have evidence on safety could be a better option.
02:12
Unknown speaker
Second, there are increased trends in the prenatal use of psychotropic drugs and incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders, making it important to study if there is any link between them. Lastly, identifying risk factors allows clinicians and healthcare workers to have informed choices.
02:28
Unknown speaker
Proactive care at early stage can lead to better treatment outcomes. Thank you for listening. If you are interested in knowing the results, please come talk to me during the post-session on Sunday. I look forward to meeting all of you.
02:41
Unknown speaker
Thank you.
