Incontro programmato fra le iniziative promosse dall’Università di Catania nell’ambito del Festival dello Sviluppo Sostenibile 2025
Venerdì 18 Luglio 2025 | Ore 11:00
Ex Cappella – Villa San Saverio, Via Valdisavoia 9 (CT)
STEFAN LEUCHT – Section of Evidence-Based Medicine in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Technical University of Munich
Doctor Leucht studied medicine in Munich, Germany, with rotations in Berlin, Paris, Cape Town, Alicante and Atlanta. He is head of the Section of Evidence-Based Medicine in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, where he has practiced since 1994. He worked as a research associate at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York in 2002/2003. He spent a year as honorary fellow at the University Department of Psychiatry in Oxford in 2013/2014. He was honorary professor of Evidence-based Psychopharmacology at the University of Aarhus, Denmark, visiting professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, visiting professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, China, and a short-term fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) in 2022. He is part of the editorial teams of several psychiatric journals, including EBM Mental Health, Lancet Psychiatry, Schizophrenia Research, Schizophrenia Bulletin, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, International Clinical Psychopharmacology, European Neuropsychopharmacology and European Psychiatry. Since inception of the ranking in 2014 Thompson Reuters has named Dr. Leucht as a “Highly Cited Researcher” ranking in the top 1% citations for the field of psychiatry. In May 2023Expertscape (http://expertscape.com/ex/schizophrenia) ranked him among the top fiveschizophrenia researchers. He led the schizophrenia guideline group of the College of International Neuropsychopharmacology (CINP). He was awarded the David Sackett Award of the German Network of Evidence-Based Medicine in 2010, The American Psychiatric Association Young Minds in Psychiatry Award in 2004, and the Robert Kerwin Award of the Royal College of Psychiatry in 2012.
The overarching theme of Stefan’s research is evidence-based medicine in psychiatry with a focus on meta-analyses, clinical trials and the involvement of patients in research planning and anti-stigma projects, a partnering at eye level which he enjoys a lot.
ABSTRACT
The dose-response relationship, driven by a drug’s engagement with its biological targets, is a foundational principle of clinical psychopharmacology. This relationship is rarely linear: therapeutic efficacy often increases with dose until it reaches a plateau as key receptors become saturated. Beyond this point, however, the risk of dose-dependent adverse effects—such as extrapyramidal symptoms, akathisia, or metabolic changes—frequently continues to rise.
Defining these precise dose-effect curves requires a robust evidence synthesis of numerous clinical findings. In the treatment of both schizophrenia and major depression, large-scale dose-response meta-analyses have been crucial. Such analyses illuminate the optimal dosing for antipsychotics and antidepressants, providing an evidence-based framework that allows clinicians to optimize the benefit-risk ratio for their patients.
