Long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics represent a valuable strategy to improve treatment adherence and reduce the risk for relapse in patients with schizophrenia. In a 12-month trial of 86 patients with first-episode schizophrenia, the relapse rate was 33% among those taking oral antipsychotics vs 5% among those receiving LAIs.6 Another study of recently diagnosed patients with schizophrenia found that the risk for relapse was nearly 30% lower with LAIs compared with oral medication.
LAIs have also been linked to decreased rates of hospitalization compared with oral antipsychotics: 20% to 30% lower in a 2017 trial of more than 30,000 patients. However, LAIs remain underprescribed by physicians.
I really hate those guys. Instead of working on newer better antipsychotics what they do is talking and talking about MIRACLE effects of the same existing sh** delivered differently. The real message is WE NEED TO CONTROL those with schizophrenia.
Those are pretty significant numbers. Tl;Dr, but I wonder if the improvement in relapse rate might be due to some other effect of the LAIs besides the “not possible to miss a dose” effect, such as the fact that dosing trickles in continuously? Maybe specifically the fact that dosing goes on while asleep?
Medication non-compliance is a big problem for all fields of medicine, not just psychiatry. Even regular folk hate taking pills, it’s a normal way to feel.
The main issue I have is the price of the injectables making going on disability a near certainty. And yes using the same old drugs and acting as though they’ve done all they need to do is a problem. I hope that there is no black market of products supposedly designed to remove the injection from the bloodstream but I think it’s almost inevitable as a new kind of non-compliance. Otherwise it’s nice to find out that some folks who “didn’t respond to treatment” were simply not taking their meds.
The folks don’t like to take drugs because drugs are crap. Same folks do take metformin for high blood sugar or blood pressure meds because those meds won’t make them feel much worse from the quality of life standpoint.
I hope lumateperone will get approved. It will start the revolution in the psychiatry. No more “compliance” issue. No more jail-like hospitals. So many things to get rid of.
And even if lumateperone won’t make it there are KarXT and SEP-363856. Something will be on the market.
The revolution in psychiatry is inevitable.
To be fair, the people who are prescribing medications (whether injectable or pills) are not the ones developing medications. I think psychiatrists do want better meds.
@Blizzard there’s also a theory that some people’s gut bacteria interfere with absorbtion of pills and if so the injection might get around that. I don’t know much about it but I guess it kinda makes sense since the gut also makes neurotransmitters and has a strong connection with the brain.
they dont care how sz meds are. they care about control ill people
pharma companies are lazy about new better drugs because they win the money anyway sbt.
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