Biotech Values

[apljack]

Currently used anti-psychotic medications used in ADP (Alzheimer's Disease Psychosis) actually increase the mortality in ADP patients.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201714

Risk of Death With Atypical Antipsychotic Drug Treatment for DementiaMeta-analysis of Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trials

(From the conclusions section)


Considering the consistency of the risks among the trials, it is likely that there is increased risk from any of the drugs and not from a particular atypical drug. This is supported by the observation that the risk for haloperidol, which was randomly and double-blindedly assigned in 2 of the trials, was similar in magnitude to that of the atypical drugs, although not statistically significant. A fair speculation is that in frail, often medically ill, elderly patients with dementia a wide range of classes of drugs (antidepressants, sedatives, hypnotics, anxiolytics, mood stabilizers, anticonvulsants, and cardiovascular or antihypertensive drugs) similarly could be associated with this level of risk. This review also demonstrates that there is a substantially larger body of placebo-controlled trials of atypical drugs vs other central nervous system–acting drugs in very elderly patients (>81 years), mainly in an institutionalized population with dementia, and this collection of trials is larger than has previously been identified in the published literature.9,52
.


An absence of evidence for either efficacy or safety with nonatypical antipsychotic drugs was observed and the existing trials are not of adequate statistical power or quality to detect any increased risk at the level reported herein with atypical drugs. It is plausible that increased mortality is associated with the use of many or all classes of drugs used to treat these symptoms and syndromes. In elderly patients, it is likely that any given medication will both help and harm, and the safety of a drug must be considered in the context of known efficacy. Ironically, analyses such as these expose the risks of performing clinical trials in elderly patients as well and are likely to discourage pharmaceutical companies, governments, and institutions from undertaking future trials in this area.

There may be a little "bending of the truth" in stating that there is an increased risk of mortality in using antipsychotics as some would argue that this is a generalized phenomenon, not even specific to antipsychotics (per paragraph 1, above)

One last thought, as provided by a clinical superivor to me years ago, "Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence."

JM2C,
AJ