The Costs of Drugs for Schizophrenia

摘要

The article in this issue of the Journal by Rosenheck et al. ("Cost-Effectiveness of Second-Generation Antipsychotics and Perphenazine in a Randomized Trial of Treatment for Chronic Schizophrenia") summarizes the costs of treatment of patients during the NIMH-sponsored Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE) study. Patients with chronic schizophrenia were assigned to treatment with perphenazine, olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine, or ziprasidone for up to 18 months. During the 18 months, they could be switched to another drug (including clozapine but generally not to a first-generation drug) whenever a doctor or patient decided that there was insufficient benefit or problematic side effects with the current treatment. The initial report found that patients were treated longer with olanzapine (median 9.2 months) before a doctor or patient felt the need to switch medications; all other drugs had median treatment durations of under 6 months (1).