Ines Gaertner in Memoriam

The community of clinical psychopharmacology lost a valued member with the passing of Ines Gaertner on February 10, 2005. She was an active member of the therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) group of the AGNP. TDM was an essential part of her work in the Department of Psychiatry of the University at Tübingen. She focused initially on clozapine aiming to improve both, efficacy and safety of the atypical antipsychotic drug. A unique study was the prospective 5-year trial showing a beneficial effect of TDM for relapse prevention (Gaertner et al.: J Clin Psychophamacol 2001; 21; 305). In this study it was also reported for the first time that optimal blood levels differ between individual patients and that stable blood levels are of high relevance. Another important study was on suicide prevention (Gaertner et al.: Pharmacopsychiatry 2002, 35: 37). In a suicide group of schizophrenic patients it was observed that a significant number of patients had been off neuroleptics for ten days or more which was never observed among the controls. This gives evidence that monitoring of drug concentrations might be helpful for suicide prevention. Her studies were always closely linked to practical psychopharmacology to help patients whom she knew very well. Ines Gaertner gave most important input when preparing the AGNP-guidelines on TDM in psychiatry (Baumann et al.; Pharmacopsychiatry 2004;37: 243). She died much too early, much too young, leaving family, many colleagues and friends behind.