VMAT2 Inhibitors: New Drugs for the Treatment of Tardive Dyskinesia.

Objective: To provide a review of tardive dyskinesia (TD) symptoms, etiology, pathophysiology, and treatments.

Data sources: PubMed, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials. gov, and Google Scholar were searched for relevant literature using a combination of the following terms: tardive dyskinesia, treatment, management, guidelines, tetrabenazine, deutetrabenazine, and valbenazine. Sources were limited to human data.

Study selection/data extraction: Articles were reviewed for relevance to TD therapy. Reference lists were manually searched for other relevant articles. Selected literature was published between 1968 and 2017.

Data synthesis: This article reviews treatment options available for patients with TD. Many agents have been tried off-label to manage symptoms, with limited evidence of benefit. The Food and Drug Administration approved the first drug to treat TD valbenazine on April 11, 2017.

Conclusion: TD is largely iatrogenic. Valbenazine's approval by the Food and Drug Administration was followed by the approval of deutetrabenazine, a drug with similar mechanism of action. Further data from postmarketing studies will be needed to verify that valbenazine's adverse effect profile is different from the profiles of tetrabenazine and deutetrabenazine.