Original Article Study shows old drugs good as new for schizophrenia Ronald Kotulak Chicago Tribune Sept. 20, 2005 12:00 AM CHICAGO - Undertaking the kind of study that drug manufacturers rarely do, the National Institute of Mental Health has found that an old medication for treating schizophrenia is just as effective as newer ones costing 10 times more. The cost of the study is high, $45 million, but experts say it could pay for itself many times over if it leads to a significant reduction in the $10 billion now spent annually on drugs for the nation's 3.2 million schizophrenics. "The implication of this study is that we've been wasting billions of dollars a year on drugs that have either no or minimal benefit over the older ones or that have minimal advantages that are greatly outweighed by their side effects," said Dr. Daniel Luchin, a University of Chicago psychiatrist who was not involved in the study. Reporting in Monday's online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers headed by Columbia University's Dr. Jeffrey Liberman found that the older drug, Trilafon (perphenazine), was just as effective as three newer antipsychotics, Seroquel (quetiapine), Risperdal (risperidone) and Geodon (ziprasidone). A fourth drug, Zyprexa (olanzapine), was somewhat better at controlling the hallucinations, delusions and disordered thinking that characterize the disease, but it carried a greater risk of type 2 diabetes. The study involved 1,400 patients treated in real-world settings at 57 sites that included doctors' offices, community clinics and hospitals.