Prof Liu Chen Chung

Plenary Speaker

From 2006 to 2010, Dr Liu Chen-Chung worked with Professor Hwu Hai-Gwo in a prospective follow-up study of the psychopathological progress of early schizophrenia-like disorder (SOPRES). He has published a series of papers regarding early detection, screening tool, transitioning from ultra-high risk (UHR) to psychosis, pharmacotherapy for prodromal psychosis, changes in neurocognitive functioning at early stage of psychosis, and even longer-term follow-up of initial non-converters as well as the 10-year outcomes of first episode psychosis of this cohort.

Since 2017, his clinical research mainly focused on a guided antipsychotic reduction to reach the minimum effective dose (GARMED) trial for patients who have remitted from psychosis and wished to reduce and even discontinue antipsychotics. He proposed his rationale of creating a compromised solution for optimising risk-to-benefit ratio of antipsychotic treatment in remitted psychosis, developed a dose reduction algorithm and a study protocol to be tested on this population in real world practice. The results of GARMED trial are encouraging, published in a series of papers on this topic and he gave talks about this topic on 2023 IEPA and 2024 SIRS conferences.

He has been a visiting scholar/clinical observer at the Orygen Youth Health Center, Melbourne, Australia in 2012. He received 3 Dr Paul Janssen Schizophrenia Research Paper Awards presented by the Taiwanese Society of Psychiatry in 2011, 2014, 2016. He is the former president of the Taiwanese Society of Schizophrenia Research (TSSR) from 2019 to 2023, and is currently an executive board member of ACSR (Asian College of Schizophrenia Research), as well as a member of TAPER (Tapering AntiPsychotics and Evaluating Recovery) International Research Consortium.

Plenary Title: Maintenance of Patients with Remitted Psychosis: Is it Possible to Reduce or Discontinue Antipsychotics?