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So much for medical innovation and the old adage that you get what you pay for.

A new study conducted by researchers in Finland concludes that patients with schizophrenia who were given clozapine, a cheaper, older drug, were less likely to die early compared to people given newer, more expensive antipsychotics, such as Seroquel, Zyprexa, and Risperdal.

Newer antipsychotics are among the world’s top-selling drugs, earning combined sales of $12.5 billion in 2008. Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder that causes patients to experience hallucinations, abnormal emotions, and distorted thinking.

Clozapine, also sold under the brand names Clozaril, Leponex, Denzapine, and Fazaclo, is among the first generation of schizophrenia drugs, also called atypical antipyschotics, first used in the 1970s. It has long been linked to well-documented adverse side effects, including a disease called agranulocytosis which causes a loss of white blood cells in some patients. The drug was temporarily pulled from the United States market before it was allowed to return with stronger warnings about the risks.

Researchers said they examined the records of about 67,000 of schizophrenic patients who received the drug over a period of 10 years and found that compared to the newer-generation drug perphenazine, people taking clozapine were 26 percent less likely to suffer premature death.

The risk of mortality was 41 percent higher for patients taking Seroquel (also called quetiapine), 34 percent higher for those taking Risperdal (resperidone), and 13 percent higher for patients given Zyprexa (olanzapine), the study found.

Researchers said the findings mean clozapine, which is given to less than five percent of American schizophrenics, should be considered a front-line treatment for the disorder.

“We know that clozapine has the highest efficacy of all the antipsychotics and it is now clear, after all, that it is not that risky or dangerous a treatment,” said study leader Jari Tiihonen of the University of Kuopio, according to a Reuters news report. “We should consider whether clozapine should be used as a first-line treatment option.”

They report estimates that thousands of people worldwide have died as a result of taking newer antipsychotic drugs and that the use of clozapine could have prevented many of those deaths.

However, some critics contend the risk of agranulocytosis is serious enough to keep clozapine as a “drug of last resort” for people with schizophrenia.

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Dangerous Drugs, Legal Briefs, Seroquel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.