Posted by Tomatheus on March 16, 2016, at 15:21:43
In reply to Re: anti zyprexa » Tomatheus, posted by stan_the_man70 on March 16, 2016, at 4:21:46
Stan_the_man,
Thank you for posting a link to the study that I asked about. I read through the report, and based on my reading, eight of the 96 patients whose records were examined for the study -- one more than what you noted in your post -- experienced heart attacks ("myocardial infarctions") over the 10-year-period. Five of these heart attacks were fatal, and three were not fatal. The report also stated that two patients who were excluded from the overall sample because their cardiovascular assessments prior to clozapine initiation were not available also experienced fatal heart attacks. The mean age of the patients whose records were examined for the study was 36.5 +/- 7.9 years. So, even without taking the heart attack deaths of the two patients who were excluded from the overall sample into account, eight of the 96 patients whose records were examined (8.3 percent) experienced heart attacks over the 10-year period, with five out of the 96 patients (5.2 percent) having experienced fatal heart attacks. The report that I read referenced statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that estimated the number of heart attack-related deaths among those in the 35-to-44-year-old age range to be 3,176 in 100,000, or 3.2 percent. The authors of the study report contended that the cardiovascular disease-related death rates of the clozapine-treated patients whose records were examined for the study "greatly exceeded" U.S. cardiovascular-disease related death rates as estimated by the CDC, as well as cardiovascular-disease related death rate estimates for the general population of Massachusetts. The authors went on to say that their findings suggest that "the gains in life expectancy made by clozapine's reduction in suicide rates in schizophrenia patients may be lost secondary to cardiovascular disease-related deaths."
Although the findings of the study do seem to suggest that the risk of cardiovascular disease-related death is higher in clozapine-treated patients than it is in the general population, I'm not sure how "greatly" the cardiovascular disease-related death rate in the clozapine-treated patients whose records were examined for the study exceeded the cardiovascular disease-related death rate in a general population of those in the same age range as those who were studied. Then again, my assessments of this study only means so much, as I most certainly do not have the kind of scientific background that the authors who conducted the study do.
Tomatheus
"Maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
We'll put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to just feel better now"- Rob Thomas
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1087151
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20160306/msgs/1087233.html