In secure hospitals and other settings clozapine has also been used in the treatment of borderline and antisocial personality disorder when this has been associated with violence or self-harm. Although oral treatment is almost universal clozapine has on occasion been enforced using either nasogastric or a short acting injection although in almost 50% of the approximately 100 reported cases patients agreed to take oral medication prior to the use of a coercive intervention. Clozapine has also been used off-label to treat catatonia with success in over 80% of cases. Bipolar disorder
On the basis of systematic reviews clozapine is recommended in some treatment guidelines as a third or fourth line treatment for bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is an unlicensed indication for clozapine. Severe personality disorders
Clozapine is also used in emotionally unstable personality disorder and a randomised controlled trial is currently underway. The use of clozapine to treat personality disorder is uncommon and unlicensed. Initiation
Whilst clozapine is usually initiated in hospital setting community initiation is also available. Before clozapine can be initiated multiple assessments and baseline investigations are performed. In the UK and Ireland there must be an assessment that the patient satisfies the criteria for prescription; treatment resistant schizophrenia, intolerance due to extrapyramidal symptoms of other antipsychotics or psychosis in Parkinsons disease. Establishing a history of treatment resistance may include careful review of the medication history including the durations, doses and compliance of previous antipsychotic therapy and that these did not have an adequate clinical effect. A diagnostic review may also be performed.
A large meta-analysis of clozapine exposure to over 250,000 people revealed that these occurred in approximately 7 in 1000 patients treated and resulted in death in 3 and 4 in 10,000 patients exposed respectively and although myocarditis occurred almost exclusively within the first 8 weeks of treatment, cardiomyopathy can occur much later on. First manifestations of illness are fever which may be accompanied by symptoms associated with upper respiratory tract, gastrointestinal or urinary tract infection. Typically C-reactive protein (CRP) increases with the onset of fever and rises in the cardiac enzyme, troponin, occur up to 5 days later. Monitoring guidelines advise checking CRP and troponin at baseline and weekly for the first 4 weeks after clozapine initiation and observing the patient for signs and symptoms of illness. Signs of heart failure are less common and may develop with the rise in troponin. A recent case-control study found that the risk of clozapine-induced myocarditis is increased with increasing rate of clozapine dose titration, increasing age and concomitant sodium valproate. A large electronic health  register study has revealed that nearly 90% of cases of suspected clozapine related myocarditis are false positives. Rechallenge after clozapine induced myocarditis has been performed and a protocol for this specialist approach has been published. A systematic review of rechallenge after myocarditis has show success in over 60% of reported cases. Gastrointestinal hypomotility
Another underrecognized and potentially life-threatening effect spectrum is gastrointestinal hypomotility, which may manifest as severe constipation, fecal impaction, paralytic ileus, bowel obstruction, acute megacolon, ischemia or necrosis.