Schizophrenia Drugs: $600 a Month More—But Not Better
Newer drugs for treating schizophrenia cost a lot more than their older counterparts–despite the fact that they don't do any more good. That's the finding of a new economic analysis of the largest and longest comparative study of "first generation" and "second generation" antipsychotic medications.
The $42.6 million "Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness" study compared the effectiveness and side effects of five medications currently used to treat people with schizophrenia. Doctors have long believed that the more expensive second-generation drugs, including olanzapine, quietapine, risperidone, and ziprasidone, work better and cause fewer side effects than older drugs such as perphenazine–and more than 90 percent of prescriptions are written for the newer choices. But early indications from the first phase of the multiphase trial showed that patients benefited equally from both the newer costlier drugs and the older, less expensive ones. The new analysis, by researchers at Yale University, pins down the numbers: Total monthly outlays associated with the five drugs–including inpatient and outpatient costs–range from $300 to $600 more per month for the newer drugs. The work appears in the December issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry and was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, a part of the National Institutes of Health.
For the 2.4 million Americans who suffer from the chronic disease, the news might mean new treatment options. "Now doctors once again have 20 medicines to choose from rather than just five or six," says Dr. Robert Rosenheck, professor of Psychiatry at Yale University and one of the authors.
One caveat: The 18-month CATIE study doesn't answer questions concerning the medications' long-term effects on patients. Side effects of antipsychotic drugs can sometimes take years to show up.
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