Question:
Does Quetiapine and/or Olanzapine increase the risk of blood clots in adults of working age?
Answer:
Data from one, large and generally well conducted retrospective
case control study indicated that current antipsychotic use may be
linked with an increased risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE),
within the first 30 days after the start of treatment. No increased
risk was found for previous exposure to antipsychotic drugs (more
than 60 days before the start of the study). The VTE risk
associated with current use appeared to vary between individual
antipsychotic drugs and neither all atypical antipsychotics nor
olanzapine specifically were found to be associated with increased
risk of VTE, however, it should be noted that the numbers of
participants in individual drug and exposure time categories was
often small.
Although the base population from which this study was sampled
was large, a still larger dataset is need to adequately explore the
relationship between the duration of use of antipsychotic drugs and
risk of VTE and how this may vary between individual drugs; it is
important to ensure that there are adequate numbers of study
participants for each drug and exposure combination assessed.
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