In schizophrenia, drugs may be personal matter

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New drugs may not work much better overall than older drugs to treat schizophrenia, but two studies published on Thursday show doctors may be able to find ways to give patients the best alternative treatment sooner.

One study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found it was important to ask whether a patient quit taking his first drug because it was not working, or because it was causing side-effects.

A second found that if patients can stick to a treatment, any treatment, they end up doing better in society than patients who stop.

However, both of the U.S. government-funded studies show there really is no good drug for treating schizophrenia, a mental disorder that affects about 1 percent of the population globally and 3.2 million Americans.

"We find again that the treatments we are using don't measure up all that well," Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman of Columbia University in New York, who led the study, told reporters in a telephone briefing.

The researchers used data from the $42.6 million CATIE (Clinical Antipsychotic Trials in Intervention Effectiveness) trial, paid for by the National Institute of Mental Health, to find if three of the newer schizophrenia drugs worked better than older drugs, or better than one another.

They included Johnson & Johnson's risperidone, sold under the brand name Risperdal; olanzapine, made by Eli Lilly and Co. under the brand name Zyprexa; and quetiapine, made by AstraZeneca under the brand name Seroquel.

They looked at 114 patients who had quit taking the older drug perphenazine and who had been randomly assigned to take one of the newer drugs.