Economic evaluation of antipsychotics for the treatment of schizophrenia: a systematic review

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to conduct a systematic review on cost-effectiveness analysis of oral antipsychotic agents to identify the trend of cost-effectiveness of drugs available for the treatment of schizophrenia. Methods: A search was conducted in three databases (MEDLINE, LILACS and PsycINFO) for head-to-head economic comparisons of antipsychotic agents. A manual search in journals, dissertations and theses databases, congresses abstracts and the Cochrane Library was also conducted to ensure comprehensiveness. After evaluation by independent reviewers, complete economic evaluations of oral antipsychotic medications were included in the final analysis. Results: Twenty four studies were included in the final analysis. The trend observed in the pooled studies showed that risperidone, olanzapine and clozapine were the most cost-effective drugs included to treat schizophrenia. Aripiprazole and haloperidol were considered comparable to quetiapine or ziprasidone and less cost-effective than olanzapine and risperidone in the pooled analysis. After removal of comparisons that had sponsored drugs included, risperidone, olanzapine and clozapine were still considered the most cost-effective strategies to treat schizophrenia. The analysis of only cost-utility studies shows approximately the same results of the other analysis. Conclusions: An analysis that consider first- vs. second-generation antipsychotics polled together might be biased by the different profiles of the specific drugs, not considering the heterogeneity of the group of second-generation antipsychotics. There seems to be a difference in the cost-effectiveness profiles between specific antipsychotic drugs. Risperidone, olanzapine and clozapine seem to be the drugs most considered cost-effective to treat schizophrenia. This result was robust to changes in funding.