Mortality Among Parkinson’s Disease Patients Treated With Pimavanserin or Atypical Antipsychotics: An Observational Study in Medicare Beneficiaries

Pimavanserin, a serotonin 5-HT₂ antagonist, is indicated for treatment of hallucinations and delusions associated with Parkinson’s disease psychosis. In premarketing trials in patients with Parkinson’s disease psychosis, 11% of patients died during open-label pimavanserin treatment. Antipsychotics, which are used off-label in Parkinson’s disease psychosis, increase mortality in dementia patients. The authors compared mortality with pimavanserin and atypical antipsychotics in a large database.

This was a retrospective new-user cohort study of Medicare beneficiaries with Parkinson’s disease initiating pimavanserin (N=3,227) or atypical antipsychotics (N=18,442) from April 2016 to March 2019. All-cause mortality hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated for pimavanserin compared with atypical antipsychotics, using segmented proportional hazards regression over 1–180 and 181+ days of treatment. Potential confounding was addressed through inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW).

Pimavanserin users had a mean age of approximately 78 years, and 45% were female. Before IPTW, some comorbidities were more prevalent in atypical antipsychotic users; after IPTW, comorbidities were well balanced between groups. In the first 180 days of treatment, mortality was approximately 35% lower with pimavanserin than with atypical antipsychotics (hazard ratio=0.65, 95% CI=0.53, 0.79), with approximately one excess death per 30 atypical antipsychotic–treated patients; however, during treatment beyond 180 days, there was no additional mortality advantage with pimavanserin (hazard ratio=1.05, 95% CI=0.82, 1.33). Pimavanserin showed no mortality advantage in nursing home patients.

Pimavanserin use was associated with lower mortality than atypical antipsychotic use during the first 180 days of treatment, but only in community-dwelling patients, not nursing home residents.