University of Ulsan College of Medicine Reports Findings in Schizophrenia (Comparative effectiveness of antipsychotic monotherapy and polypharmacy in schizophrenia patients with clozapine treatment: A nationwide, health insurance data-based …): Mental Health Diseases and Conditions – Schizophrenia

2022 JUN 01 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- New research on Mental Health Diseases and Conditions - Schizophrenia is the subject of a report. According to news reporting from Seoul, South Korea, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Clozapine is the most effective antipsychotic for treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). However, it remains uncertain whether antipsychotic augmentation to clozapine has the superior effectiveness over clozapine alone and the effect size of clozapine compared to other antipsychotic drugs in TRS.”

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the University of Ulsan College of Medicine, “Therefore, we examined the comparative effectiveness of antipsychotic monotherapy and polypharmacy on the risk of psychiatric admission and treatment discontinuation in TRS. Data were collected from the Health Insurance Review Agency database between January 2010 and December 2019 in South Korea. Among prevalent patients with schizophrenia, we defined 22,327 patients with TRS as those who had been prescribed with clozapine at least once during the entire observation period. Stratified Cox proportional hazards regressions were performed using data on all antipsychotic prescriptions of patients with TRS to investigate the risk of psychiatric hospitalization and treatment discontinuation associated with antipsychotic treatment. In individual comparisons, clozapine monotherapy was the most effective for the risk of psychiatric hospitalization compared to no use (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.23, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.22-0.25). In group comparisons, clozapine with long-acting injectable (LAI) second-generation antipsychotics (SGA) was superior to clozapine monotherapy for the risk of psychiatric hospitalization (HR = 0.60, 95%CI = 0.41-0.88). Clozapine monotherapy was associated with the lowest risk of treatment discontinuation in the individual and group comparisons.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “This retrospective observational population-based study reports that clozapine with LAI SGA is more effective in lowering the risk of psychiatric hospitalization in antipsychotic group comparison with the reference of clozapine monotherapy.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Comparative effectiveness of antipsychotic monotherapy and polypharmacy in schizophrenia patients with clozapine treatment: A nationwide, health insurance data-based study. European Neuropsychopharmacology, 2022;59:36-44. European Neuropsychopharmacology can be contacted at: Elsevier, Radarweg 29, 1043 Nx Amsterdam, Netherlands. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; European Neuropsychopharmacology - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/european-neuropsychopharmacology/)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Harin Kim, Dept. of Psychiatry, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, 88 Olympic-Ro 43-Gil, SongPa-Gu, Seoul 05505, South Korea. Additional authors for this research include Sung Woo Joo, Young Tak Jo, Soojin Ahn, Young Jae Choi, Woohyeok Choi, Soyeon Park and Jungsun Lee.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroneuro.2022.03.010. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

Publisher contact information for the journal European Neuropsychopharmacology is: Elsevier, Radarweg 29, 1043 Nx Amsterdam, Netherlands.

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