Zyprexa News

Older Schizophrenia Drug More Effective Than New Drugs Like Zyprexa

- April 4, 2006

A new study revealed that despite the development of new drugs to treat schizophrenia like Zyprexa and Risperdal, the older option, clozapine, still provides the most successful treatment.

The study found that more patients were able to stay on clozapine for longer periods of time and the drug was able to control some of the symptoms of the condition such as hallucinations and delusions.

However, even clozapine's adverse side effects were so severe that only 40 percent of patients enrolled in the clinical trials could continue the drug treatment.

"None of the medications are sufficient for treatment of this disorder," said Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the study. "We have to find a new generation of medicines."

The study findings, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, was aimed at outlining the best procedures to treat the approximately 3.2 million Americans who suffer from schizophrenia, a seriously debilitating mental disorder.

Currently, all of the drug treatments can reduce or terminate hallucinations and delusions, but none can improve thought process, which severely impairs most schizophrenics.

The study was designed to compare and contrast different treatment drugs to determine the best ones. Researchers enrolled 1,493 patients with schizophrenia into the study and gave them one of four antipsychotics-Zyprexa, Seroquel, Risperdal, Geodon, and an older drug, perphenazine.

Dr. Carol A. Tamminga of the Universtiy of Texas Southwestern Medical School said the results of the first phase of the study were "sobering."

Only 26 percent of the patients continued using the drug for the entire 18 months of the study. The rest weren't able to stay on the drug because they couldn't handle the side effects or thought the drugs weren't helping their condition.

The only drug that was slightly better than the rest was Zyprexa. However, it had a higher level of severe side effects including diabetes and hyperglycemia.

In the second phase of the study, patients for whom the first drugs weren't helping were randomly given another drug. This time, another older drug, clozapine, which is rarely used because of potentially life-threatening side effects, was included in the study.

Researchers reported that clozapine was significantly more effective than other drugs used in the study. Twenty out of 45 patients in the trials who were given clozapine were able to remain on the drug for the entire length of the study, compared to only eight out of 45 who were on another drug.

"The evidence.is that clozapine is the only rational alternative" if another new drug doesn't work, said Tamminga.

For more information on Zyprexa side effects, please contact us to confer with a Zyprexa attorney.

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