For the PANSS analysis, the average QALYs gained per patient ranged between 0.767 to 0.770 for interventions with olanzapine as first treatment and 0.765 for interventions with ziprasidone as first treatment. Average cost per patient ranged between $70,232 to $72,776 for interventions with olanzapine as first treatment and $73,086 to $73,310 for interventions with ziprasidone as first treatment.
For the BPRS analysis, the average QALYs gained per patient ranged between 0.779 to 0.783 for interventions with olanzapine as first treatment and 0.774 to 0.782 for interventions with ziprasidone as first treatment. Average cost per patient ranged between $68,176 to $68,840 for interventions with olanzapine as first treatment and $69,529 to $70,960 for interventions with ziprasidone as first treatment.
The authors reported that the olanzapine pathways resulted in greater QALYs and lower costs than the ziprasidone pathways in both the PANSS and BPRS analyses.
Results of the probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed that olanzapine, compared with ziprasidone, had an incremental cost per QALY gained of less than $50,000 when both were switched to the other in 87.6% of simulations.