Should clozapine continue to be restricted to third-line status for schizophrenia?: a decision-analytic model.
BACKGROUND
Clozapine is currently restricted to patients who have failed at least two trials of other antipsychotic medications because of concerns that its use as a first-line agent would lead to greater mortality, mainly through agranulocytosis.


OBJECTIVE
We sought to determine the cost-effectiveness of allowing clozapine to be a first-line treatment versus the current policy of restricting clozapine to third-line status.


METHODS
We performed a cost-effectiveness analysis using published data from randomized controlled trials and epidemiologic studies. The target population was patients with schizophrenia in an acute psychotic episode, with a lifetime time horizon and societal perspective. Outcome measures included life expectancy, quality-adjusted life expectancy, costs, and cost-effectiveness ratios.


RESULTS
Using clozapine as a first agent would lead to modest gains in life-expectancy as well as quality-adjusted life expectancy, relative to restricting its use to patients who failed 2 conventional antipsychotics. The cost-effectiveness ratio of using clozapine first vs. using clozapine third would be $24,100 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY). In 1-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses, these findings were robust to a variety of assumptions.


CONCLUSIONS
Allowing clozapine to be a first-line agent may lead to small gains in life expectancy at moderate but acceptable costs.


CONCLUSIONS
While these results do not shed light on whether clozapine should be the preferred first-line strategy, they do suggest that clozapine should be added to the armamentarium of possible treatments for treatment-sensitive as well as treatment-resistant schizophrenia.
Wang
Philip S
PS
Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 1620 Tremont Street, Suite 3030 Boston, MA 02120, USA. pwang@rics.bwh.harvard.edu
Ganz
David A
DA
Benner
Joshua S
JS
Glynn
Robert J
RJ
Avorn
Jerry
J
D000328:Adult; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000191:economics / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003024:Clozapine / Q000191:economics / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D006801:Humans; D008390:Markov Chains; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D011336:Probability; D019057:Quality-Adjusted Life Years; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000188:drug therapy*; D014481:United States
D014150:Antipsychotic Agents; D003024:Clozapine