Economic analyses of olanzapine in the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Abstract

Schizophrenia generates important costs for society –both direct, as a consequence of hospitalization and outpatient treatment, and indirect; related to loss of productivity. The atypical antipsychotics, such as olanzapine, have supposed an important advance in the treatment of schizophrenia. The greater cost of atypical antipsychotics with respect to conventional drugs has led to the conduction of pharmacoeconomic studies to determine its efficiency. This article reviews the complete pharmacoeconomic studies that compare olanzapine with haloperidol and risperidone in the treatment of schizophrenia. Cost analyses comparing olanzapine and haloperidol show that the former drug does not add increased cost to therapy, and even contributes to lessen expenses fundamentally as a result of a decrease in hospitalizations. In the economic evaluations comparing olanzapine and risperidone, the results are not conclusive, and in general, the total costs associated with both treatments were similar. In the treatment of bipolar disorder, although few studies have estimated the economic impact of olanzapine, it has been observed a reduction of hospitalization costs associated to the treatment with olanzapine.