[Leponex: experience of the hospital pharmacist]

Clozapine's monitoring, with a co-responsibility between psychiatrists and pharmacists, was very efficient for the prevention of neutropenia's side effects. This intensive drug safety has lowered the agranulocytosis' cases in France to a 0.5% prevalence. However the cost of clozapine led to a strict estimation for Health expenditures. Our study, trained in an university department of psychiatry in Sainte-Anne Hospital (Paris), has included 14 patients treated with clozapine during at least 12 months and has displayed a decrease of 10% in their annual global cost, comparing to the same group of patients treated by classical neuroleptics during the preceding year. This global cost includes the treatment, the blood monitoring and the cost of different hospital or community cares. Quality of life, in clozapine group, was much improved as illustrated by lowing full time hospitalization relayed earlier by community care and precocious social readaptation.