<qa>  What was the most effective way to treat a group of premenopausal womenEstrogen is hypothesised to be protective for women against early onset of severe symptoms of schizophrenia Hafner,1991; Seeman, 1992. This estrogen hypothesis was derived from epidemiological, clinical and animal studies. Following the results of such studies, we conducted a study Kulkarni et al 1996 in which a group of premenopausal women with schizophrenia were given 0.02mg oral estradiol as an adjunct to antipsychotic drug treatment for 8 weeks and compared their progress with a similar group who received antipsychotic drugs only. The group receiving estrogen made a significantly more rapid recovery from acute psychotic symptoms and also reported improvement in their general health status. Subsequently, we have conducted a 4 week double blind, placebo controlled study using 100 microgram estradiol skin patch. We found that the 12 pre-menopausal women who received the estradiol adjunct had a significantly lower total PANSS and BPRS score than 12 women who received placebo patches plus antipsychotic medication. Kulkarni et al 2000. 