Summary Safety Review - Clozapine - Assessing the effectiveness of monitoring for low numbers of white blood cells

Clozapine is a prescription drug authorized for sale in Canada to manage symptoms of schizophrenia when other drugs have not helped. Clozapine was developed in the 1960s. In 1975, clozapine was removed from the Canadian market because of reports of life-threatening infections and deaths linked with low numbers of white blood cells (i.e., agranulocytosis). Clozapine was re-introduced to the Canadian market in 1991, but patients must be enrolled in a patient registry program to monitor their white blood cell levels before their next prescription can be filled.

Publisher

Health Canada

Resources

2

Catalogue metadata updated

2024-05-08