The Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) introduced the category of Acute and transient psychotic disorders (ATPD), that assimilate clinical concepts such as the French Bouffée Délirante, Kleist and Leonhard's cycloid psychosis, and the scandinavian reactive psychosis.

The authors present a clinical case of ATPD and a literature review based on PubMed/MEDLINE, using the keywords: “acute and transient psychotic disorder”, “prognosis” and “diagnostic stability”, aiming to discuss the main challenges regarding the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.

The patient is a male with 37 years old with two previous psychotic episodes (with 2.5 years of interval), both with an acute onset (of 7 and 3 days respectively), and a fast response to antipsychotic treatment, with periods of complete symptom's remission. He maintains treatment with 6 mg of paliperidone. In the literature, we found scarce information on ATPD. Though several variables have been described as having influence on the prognosis (gender, pre-morbid functioning, acute onset and presence of affective symptoms), this topic remains controversial. Another difficult aspect about ATPD seems to be its low diagnostic stability, with diagnosis changing mostly to Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective disorder and Bipolar disorder. Duration of treatment after complete remission of symptoms is another controversial aspect of this disease.

ATPD seems to have low diagnostic stability and poor research investment, and so it represents a challenge for psychiatrists on managing these patients in terms of treatment and follow-up plan. Further studies should be held regarding prognosis and treatment.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.