20 However, some methodological bias must be taken into consideration, because this study was based on a small sample

of 65 schizophrenic and 6 schizoaffective patients. Thus, a type II error could not be reliably excluded. Another point of concern refers to suicide assessment. It has been proposed that suicidal behavior shows a continuum between suicide attempt and suicide completion. In other words, severe suicide attempts are biologically closer to suicide selleck chemical completion, and the seriousness of the suicide attempt might explain differences in serotonergic activity4 Therefore, studying patients with suicidal ideation or suicide plans, as Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical performed in this previous study, can be rather different from a biological point of view than studying patients with suicide attempts or suicide completion. We were not able to observe any significant association between the T102C polymorphism and suicidal behavior in our sample. We investigated Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical a fairly homogeneous sample of 129 schizophrenic inpatients, as assessed with structured instruments to evaluate diagnosis. Another strength of our study is the fact that suicidal behavior was Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical assessed using a semistructured interview as well as a supplementary interview with

at least one close relative, plus a review of medical records. This is rather important, since it has been previously shown that a significant degree of past suicidal

behavior was not recorded during routine clinical assessment and, the use of a semistructured screening instrument may improve documentation and detection of lifetime suicidal behavior.12 Indeed, a phenotypic characterization of suicide Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical attempt, as performed in our study, could be of major interest since some categories of suicidal behavior (ie, more lethal or violent ones) could be more closely associated with a biological marker.21 We were also not able to observe an Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical association between the T102C polymorphism and schizophrenia diagnosis. This result is in apparent contradiction with a recent metaanalysis.3 However, the authors of this analysis showed the that in East Asian countries, there was not a significant association with the C allele or CC homozygosity, indicating strong genetic differences and incompatibility between data from European and East Asian populations. They suggest that data from European and Asian samples should not be pooled when evaluating the involvement of this gene in schizophrenia. Interestingly, the frequency of the T allele was much higher in East Asian patients and controls (59.5% and 57.5%, respectively) than in European patients and controls (40% and 43.5%, respectively). In our sample, the frequency was intermediate between those values, since the T allele frequencies in patients and controls were 51% and 48.5%, respectively.