Cost-Effectiveness of Aripiprazole versus Olanzapine in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder
2011
This article, published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, describes a Markov model that estimates the cost-effectiveness of aripiprazole versus olanzapine in the treatment of patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in Sweden with a focus on the metabolic impact of the treatments. The health-state transition model consists of five health states: no metabolic syndrome, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and death. The analyses are conducted over a lifetime, with a cycle length of one year. The societal perspective is adopted for the costs calculations. The model was developed in Microsoft Excel with Visual Basic for Applications programming.
Results indicate that treatment with aripiprazole dominated over olanzapine in both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In schizophrenia, quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) gained are 0.08 and cost savings Swedish kronor (SEK) 30,570 (USD 4000); in bipolar disorder, QALYs gained are 0.09 and cost savings SEK 28,450 (USD 3,720). In probabilistic sensitivity analyses, aripiprazole results in a dominant outcome in 84% of cases in schizophrenia and in 77% of cases in bipolar disorder.
Based on these findings the authors conclude that the significantly lower risk of developing metabolic syndrome observed with aripiprazole compared with olanzapine was associated with less risk of diabetes and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality that translates into lower costs and higher quality of life.
Cost-Effectiveness of Aripiprazole versus Olanzapine in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder
Source:
Kasteng F, Eriksson J, Sennfält K et al. Metabolic Effects and Cost-Effectiveness of Aripiprazole versus Olanzapine in Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 2011; 124 (3): 214-225. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2011.01716.x