Pimavanserin

Increased Mortality in Elderly Patients with Dementia-Related Psychosis
: Antipsychotic drugs increase the all-cause risk of death in elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis. Analyses of 17 dementia-related psychosis placebo-controlled trials (modal duration of 10 weeks and largely in patients taking atypical antipsychotic drugs) revealed a risk of death in the drug-treated patients of between 1.6 to 1.7 times that in placebo-treated patients. Over the course of a typical 10-week controlled trial, the rate of death in drug-treated patients was about 4.5%, compared to a rate of about 2.6% in placebo-treated patients. Although the causes of death were varied, most of the deaths appeared to be either cardiovascular (e.g., heart failure, sudden death) or infectious (e.g., pneumonia) in nature. Serivan is not approved for the treatment of patients with dementia-related psychosis unrelated to the hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson’s disease psychosis.
QT Interval Prolongation
: Serivan prolongs the QT interval. The use of Serivan should be avoided in patients with known QT prolongation or in combination with other drugs known to prolong QT interval including Class 1A antiarrhythmics (e.g., quinidine, procainamide) or Class 3 antiarrhythmics (e.g., amiodarone, sotalol), certain antipsychotic medications (e.g., ziprasidone, chlorpromazine, thioridazine), and certain antibiotics (e.g., gatifloxacin, moxifloxacin). Serivan should also be avoided in patients with a history of cardiac arrhythmias, as well as other circumstances that may increase the risk of the occurrence of torsade de pointes and/or sudden death, including symptomatic bradycardia, hypokalemia or hypomagnesemia, and the presence of congenital prolongation of the QT interval.