New Antipsychotics Offer No Advantage: Study

[Hannah Bell]

The common distinction between first- and second-generation antipsychotics has no scientific basis and should be dropped, according to a paper in The Lancet. A meta-analysis of 150 double-blind studies found little evidence that newer, so-called atypical antipsychotics are more effective than older drugs for symptoms of schizophrenia, MedPage Today writes.

The researchers also found that, although newer drugs induced fewer extrapyramidal effects (including tremor, slurred speech, restlessness, movement disorders, among other things) than Haldol, which is also known as haloperidol, this did not occur when compared with low-potency first-generation agents.

http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/12/new-antipsychotics-offer-no-advantage-study/

In an accompanying editorial, two British researchers went further, calling the notion that newer agents are more effective or safer than older drugs “spurious.” “As a group they are no more efficacious, do not improve specific symptoms, have no clearly different side-effect profiles than the first-generation antipsychotics, and are less cost effective,” wrote Peter Tyrer of Imperial College in London and Tim Kendall of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health in London.

[WildClarySage]

1. But isn't it nice that these medications can be options

for people who need medication but can't tolerate the older ones?