Abstract
The Clozaril Patient Management System (CPMS) has been developed to provide a 100% fail-safe system for monitoring white blood cell counts (WBCs) in patients being treated with clozapine (Clozaril®/Leponex®) in the United States and to provide comprehensive data collection on the incidence and development of agranulocytosis. CPMS provides a case administrator and a registered pharmacist. Their role is to support the physician by facilitating the determination of WBC's at a national laboratory and by distributing clozapine to the patient. Specific tasks of the case administrator include: keeping track of outpatient phlebotomy appointments, following up missed appointments, ensuring that WBCs are obtained and analyzed weekly by the national laboratory, following up the results of these tests, providing liaison with the pharmacy, maintaining a data base for all patients receiving clozapine and conveying these data to the physician. Initial experience with this program in Cleveland is described in this paper. The characteristics of patients enrolled in CPMS, satisfaction with the program and its success in meeting predetermined objectives are described. Experience with 31 patients in this outpatient setting suggests that CPMS can be an effective, reliable system for assisting in blood monitoring of patients being treated with clozapine.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Kane J, Honigfeld G, Singer J, Meltzer HY (1988) Clozapine for treatment-resistant schizoprenia: a double-blind comparison with chlorpromazine. Arch Gen Psychiatry 45:789–796
Krupp P (1989) Granulocytopenia associated with Leponex: a review of the situation. Psychopharmacology
Meltzer HY (1986) Novel approaches to the pharmacotherpy of schizophrenia. Drug Dev Res 9:23–40
Meltzer HY, Bastani B, Young Kwon K, Ramirez L, Burnett B, Sharp J (1989) A prospective study of clozapine in treatment resistant schizophrenia: a preliminary report. Psychopharmacology [Suppl] 99:S68-S72
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bastani, B., Alphs, L.D. & Meltzer, H.Y. Development of the Clozaril Patient Management System. Psychopharmacology 99 (Suppl 1), S122–S125 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00442576
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00442576