New schizophrenia drugs ‘no better than the old’

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September 20, 2005

New schizophrenia drugs ‘no better than the old’
By Nigel Hawkes



NEW drugs for schizophrenia are hardly more effective than an older, cheaper one, a study in the United States has found.
Three quarters of patients had given up taking the drugs within 18 months, either because of their side-effects or because they did not feel they were doing them any good.

The best of the drugs was Zyprexa (olanzepine), but side-effects included the risk of diabetes and weight gain.

The older drug perphenazine (sold as Fentazin) was as effective as several new drugs. “What works for one person may not work for another,” said Jeffrey Liberman, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and lead author of the study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The study used 1,493 schizophrenia patients in a head-to-head comparison. Participants were randomly assigned to take one of five drugs, put into identical capsules so that neither doctor nor patient knew which was being tested.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-1788659,00.html