Olanzapine for delirium

Clinical Psychiatry News, July, 2002 by Jeff Evans

Older age, spread of cancer to the CNS, and hypoactive delirium may make it much harder for delirious patients to respond to treatment with olanzapine, said Dr. William Breitbart of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and his colleagues.

In a prospective, open-label study of 79 patients who were delirious and hospitalized for various cancers, patients older than 70 years were 172 times more likely to have a significantly poorer response to olanzapine over 7 days of treatment (Psychosomatics 43[3]:175-82, 2002).