Publication:

Metabolic syndrome in schizophrenia: how much is attributable to drug treatment?

Background This study was planned to investigate new onset metabolic syndrome (MS) and its various components associated with two widely used second generation antipsychotics i.e. olanzapine and quetiapine in the management of schizophrenia using International Diabetic Federation (IDF) criteria.

Methods A total of 60 drug naïve patients with ICD-10 diagnosis of first episode schizophrenia, divided in two groups of 30 patients each, were randomly allocated to receive two different treatments i.e. olanzapine and quetiapine. Metabolic parameters were measured at day 0, then at 6 and 12 weeks. For categorical variables, ‘Chi-square test’ was used for comparison between the two groups.For continuous variables student’s t-test was used.

Results At 6 weeks none of the patient, treated with olanzapine, developed Metabolic Syndrome (MS), but among quetiapine group 3.33% (1 out of 30) developed MS. At the end of 12 weeks, 20% patients (i.e. 6 out of 30) had MS in olanzapine treatment group and 10% (3 out of 30) in quetiapine treatment group.

Conclusion Both olanzapine and quetiapine were found to cause comparable metabolic derangement and metabolic syndrome.