Olanzapine for the Treatment of Bipolar Disorder

Because this piece has no abstract, we have provided for your benefit the first 3 sentences of the full text.

Sir: In a recent issue of the Companion, Masand and colleagues¹report a retrospective analysis of 36 outpatients withbipolar or schizoaffective disorder in which risperidone and olanzapinewere comparable in efficacy and safety, but treatmentcosts were lower for risperidone-treated patients. Although theacquisition costs of risperidone are lower than those of olanzapine,when other factors are taken into account, the costs of the 2agents do not differ appreciably. As the authors point out in theirarticle, atypical antipsychotics are becoming commonly prescribedagents in primary care settings.