Age Impacts Olanzapine Exposure Differently During Use of Oral Versus Long-Acting Injectable Formulations: An...

Olanzapine is a commonly prescribed antipsychotic available as oral and long-acting injectable (LAI) formulations. Data are lacking on the use and safety of olanzapine-LAI in older patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of increasing age on olanzapine exposure during oral versus LAI administration in a real-life setting.

This observational study was based on routine therapeutic drug monitoring data collected during 2005-2017. As a measure of exposure, absolute concentrations and concentration/dose ratios of olanzapine were defined as outcome variables. Linear mixed-model analyzes were used to allow for inclusion of multiple samples per patient and adjustment for covariate effects.

Olanzapine concentrations and doses from 8,288 patients (21,378 measurements) were included. The number of patients on oral treatment was 7,893 (42%, 50 years or older), while 395 were using olanzapine-LAI (27%, 50 years or older). In contrast to oral use, where the dose-adjusted concentration of olanzapine increased significantly for patients 50 years or older (P < 0.001), increasing age had no effect on olanzapine concentration following LAI administration (P = 0.550). The effects of smoking habits and gender were equal in oral and olanzapine-LAI users.

While the dose-adjusted systemic exposure of olanzapine increases by age after oral administration, these novel findings from a large patient population show that systemic exposure of olanzapine-LAI is unaffected by age, probably due to the lacking influence of age-related changes in gastrointestinal absorption and/or presystemic metabolism. From a pharmacokinetic point of view, it is therefore no reason to restrict the use of olanzapine-LAI in older patients requiring long-term treatment.