There is some evidence that haloperidol is an effective treatment for  acute mania .
From the limited data available , there was no difference in overall efficacy of treatment between haloperidol and olanzapine or risperidone .
Some evidence suggests that haloperidol could be less effective than aripiprazole .
BACKGROUND The main objectives in treating mania are to control dangerous behaviour , reduce suicide , produce appropriate acute sedation and shorten the episode of mood disturbance .
Among different drugs , haloperidol has for many years been used in treating psychotic patients , but it has a troublesome side effect profile .
OBJECTIVES To assess the effects of haloperidol for the treatment of mania in comparison with placebo or other active drugs , either as monotherapy or add-on treatment .
Pretreatment plasma HVA and haloperidol response in acute mania.
INTRODUCTION Pretreatment plasma homovanillic acid ( HVA ) levels have been reported to be a correlate of clinical response to typical antipsychotics for schizophrenic , bipolar manic , and mixed groups of psychotic patients . Biological markers of clinical response to antipsychotics could be useful for optimizing drug treatment . METHOD Thirty-one consenting acute inpatient subjects between ages 19 and 66 years with a DSM-III-R clinical diagnosis of bipolar disorder , manic with psychotic features were entered into this double-blind study and were r and omly assigned to receive either haloperidol 25 mg/day or haloperidol 5 mg for the 3-week study . Subjects also received one of the following concomitant medications : st and ard lithium , lorazepam 4 mg/day , or placebo . RESULTS The primary multiple regression analysis , including all subjects on both haloperidol doses , yielded a significant main effect for pretreatment plasma HVA ( n=31 , F=5.7 , P=0.025 ) , indicating that higher pretreatment plasma HVA was predictive of better clinical response . In addition , the interaction between haloperidol dose and pretreatment plasma HVA was also significantly associated with clinical response ( F=12.59 , P=0.0015 ) . When the two haloperidol doses were analyzed separately , we found that pretreatment plasma HVA was only correlated with clinical response in the low haloperidol 5 mg/day group ( n=18 , F=11.73 , P=0.0038 ) and was unrelated to clinical response to the high haloperidol 25 mg/day group . LIMITATIONS The sample size was small . Results may have been confounded by prior antipsychotic treatment and concomitant use of lithium or lorazepam . DISCUSSION These results suggest that pretreatment plasma HVA could be useful for dosing antipsychotics . Patients with high plasma HVA levels would be good c and i date s for low-dose treatment because they are more likely to improve on such a dose , while patients with low plasma HVA levels might warrant more rapid dosage escalation
There is some evidence that haloperidol is an effective treatment for  acute mania .
From the limited data available , there was no difference in overall efficacy of treatment between haloperidol and olanzapine or risperidone .
Some evidence suggests that haloperidol could be less effective than aripiprazole .
BACKGROUND The main objectives in treating mania are to control dangerous behaviour , reduce suicide , produce appropriate acute sedation and shorten the episode of mood disturbance .
Among different drugs , haloperidol has for many years been used in treating psychotic patients , but it has a troublesome side effect profile .
OBJECTIVES To assess the effects of haloperidol for the treatment of mania in comparison with placebo or other active drugs , either as monotherapy or add-on treatment .