New developments in the treatment of depression

Depression is a widespread, recurrent disease that sometimes remains inadequately managed by current drug therapy. There is a need to develop better antidepressants that ideally would have a more rapid onset of action, a higher response rate, and improved long-term efficacy. The latest generation of antidepressants have novel dual modes of action, and the results of recent clinical trials indicate that they may have superior efficacy to established drug therapies such as tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Dual acting drugs, such as venlafaxine, a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, and mirtazapine, a noradrenergic and specific serotonergic antidepressant, have been shown to have a rapid onset of action. The long-term efficacy of mirtazapine and of venlafaxine was also found to be superior to that of TCAs. Pindolol was found to accelerate response to SSRI therapy. However, these results were dependent on the patient population. These studies clearly suggest that the latest generation of antidepressants offer a more rapid response to treatment, an improved response rate, and superior long-term efficacy than conventional therapy. The clinical importance of these results should not be overlooked.

Social phobia: diagnosis, severity and implications for treatment

Social phobia has a direct effect on the ability of the individual to interact with others in social or work situations and as a result is associated with a high level of dysfunction. The level of impairment is as severe as that found in other chronic disorders such as depression and is increased by a cascade of comorbidity, which complicates management. Efficacy in social phobia was reported with the MAOIs and this led to the investigation of reversible inhibitors of monoamine oxidase-A (RIMA) which offer a safer alternative. The efficacy of moclobemide has been shown in social phobia and the effect is more clear cut in patients with more severe symptoms. The better effect in severe social phobia has also been reported with the SSRI paroxetine. Effective treatment of social phobia appears to be able to overcome the substantial chronicity of illness which is frequent in sufferers. The introduction of these treatments should encourage people with social phobia to seek medical help for this hitherto much neglected disorder.

Predicting response: noradrenaline reuptake inhibition

For the past decade, the role of noradrenaline in depression has been somewhat neglected in favour of serotonin. This is largely because of the advent of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which have facilitated clinical and experimental observation of the roles of serotonin. Until now, no such tools have been available to study the noradrenergic system. However, the recent development of reboxetine, the first selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor, has allowed clinical investigation of the role of the noradrenergic system in different aspects of depressive disorders. In clinical trials, the use of reboxetine has shown that selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibition is an effective approach to alleviating depression. It is more effective than placebo and at least as effective as desipramine, imipramine and fluoxetine in the short term. In addition, its efficacy is maintained in patients with severe depression and in those receiving long-term maintenance treatment. Reboxetine is very well tolerated, as predicted from its pharmacological profile, having fewer anticholinergic side-effects than imipramine or desipramine. Compared with fluoxetine, patients treated with reboxetine experienced less nausea and sexual dysfunction, adverse events that are common among those taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Adverse events predicted by the neuroanatomy of the noradrenergic system, such as tremor and cardiovascular effects, occurred less frequently than expected. Clinical experience with reboxetine challenges our current knowledge of the role of noradrenaline in depression and questions existing evidence based on studies with noradrenergic tricyclic antidepressants. Selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibition, as exemplified by reboxetine, therefore offers a significant improvement in antidepressant pharmacotherapy, and an opportunity to increase our understanding of the role of noradrenaline in depression.

Is severe depression a separate indication? ECNP Consensus Meeting September 20, 1996, Amsterdam. European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

There is not an accepted definition of severe depression, but using cut-off scores on rating scales severe depression is considered to lie at one extreme of a continuum of severity. The evidence from epidemiological, biological, and clinical efficacy studies does not support severe depression as a separate illness category. A good response to antidepressants is seen in both moderate and severe depression. The available evidence supports the view that in most cases an effective antidepressant in moderate depression is likely to have efficacy in severe depression. Few studies have found differences between antidepressants in their efficacy in treating severe depression. Most evidence of differential efficacy derives from studies of clomipramine, which is perceived as a particularly potent antidepressant by many clinicians. Other tricyclic antidepressants do not appear to have an advantage in severe depression. Separate studies to demonstrate efficacy in severe depression are not necessary for the registration of a new antidepressant. However if efficacy in severe depression is demonstrated in separate studies this information could be included in the summary of product characteristics to provide guidance to clinicians.

Alternatives to placebo-controlled trials in psychiatry. ECNP Consensus Meeting, September 26, 1996, Amsterdam. European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

Patients receiving placebo do not merely receive an inert substance but also receive support, concern, and reassurance that assists the therapeutic alliance and encourages the positive attitude that forms the basis of cognitive treatment. Response to non-specific factors is seen in all fields of medicine but is particularly potent in psychiatry. The placebo response is variable across settings and across time and is unpredictable. Historical data cannot therefore provide an adequate control for treatment effects in studies of new drugs. The scientific position is clear that a comparison against placebo is required for the unequivocal demonstration of the efficacy of a treatment. Evidence from at least two positive well designed and conducted placebo-controlled studies is generally accepted as appropriate to establish the efficacy of a drug. Attention to diagnosis, severity of illness, and to possible comorbid conditions is needed in the design and conduct of placebo-controlled studies in order to optimise the chance of obtaining valid data. The use of all data obtained, including dropouts due to lack of efficacy, should be maximised. The use of placebo may not be possible in some conditions that represent medical emergencies or may be difficult to justify in serious disorders where an effective treatment has already been established. Alternative designs to placebo-controlled studies can be considered. Consistent superior efficacy compared with a well accepted, effective treatment, given in an easily defended dose, is considered to be good evidence of efficacy provided that the studies are well designed and well conducted. Evidence of superior efficacy to an established effective comparator treatment may be regarded as evidence of efficacy. The demonstration of a dose-response relationship where one dose is found to be significantly better than another, can be taken as evidence for efficacy, particularly where there is already placebo-controlled evidence of the efficacy of the identified dose. Where a new treatment is found, under controlled conditions, to be equivalent to an existing well accepted comparator treatment, given at a clearly effective dose, this may be taken as evidence of efficacy, but only if the comparator is consistently superior to placebo and if equivalence has been defined beforehand. The claims for efficacy based on results from equivalence studies are less easily sustained than the evidence from placebo-controlled studies or studies demonstrating superior efficacy, due to the fact that those studies have no internal validation.

The failure of placebo-controlled studies. ECNP Consensus Meeting, September 13, 1997, Vienna. European College of Neuropsychopharmacology

In recent years an increasing number of clinical trials to test the efficacy of new potential treatments have failed to demonstrate a difference from placebo for either the new treatment or for an established reference drug. A rise in the response rate to placebo observed in a range of psychiatric disorders has not been paralleled by a rise in the response to drug and small effect sizes make it difficult to establish significant differences. A number of factors are thought to contribute to the rising placebo response or the smaller effect sizes. These include differences over time in the populations studied, changes in investigator behaviour, and failures of trial design. The inclusion of a greater number of patients with mild disorder or whose disorder has a fluctuating course is thought likely to increase the placebo response rates. Close attention needs to be paid to patient selection in terms of diagnosis, severity and absence of confounding comorbidity such as alcoholism, personality disorders or brief depression. The rising placebo response is associated with an increasing variability of placebo response seen in some centres. The ability of some centres to select appropriate patients for studies to demonstrate a separation of reference treatment and placebo and the inability of other centres suggests that a more careful selection of investigators is important. Selection should be based on their experience, their record from previous studies, and their aptitude for being trained. The inclusion of a reference treatment arm provides a useful means to judge the performance of individual centres. The exclusion of eccentric centres that fail to reach predetermined performance criteria, such as a failure to separate reference treatment from placebo, may be considered. Trial designs need to qualify adequately the study population and pay sufficient attention to diagnosis, minimum severity and comorbidity at entry. Greater care is needed in excluding concomitant overt or covert psychotherapy and in reducing the unnecessary therapeutic contact that has been increased unwittingly by some protocols. Identifying patients with prior stability of illness, with clear disability, and with a minimum severity at entry is likely to lower the placebo response substantially and increase the effect size and power of the study. The possible influence of comedication should also be considered. The inclusion of a placebo run in period is considered unhelpful and the use of better statistical techniques should be adopted to maximise the sensitivity of the study and increase the chances of testing efficacy.

Chairman's overview. The place of reboxetine in antidepressant therapy

A comprehensive series of clinical trials have compared the unique selective NRI reboxetine with placebo and with the TCAs imipramine and desipramine, as well as with the SSRI fluoxetine. Reboxetine is clearly effective in both the short and the long term compared with placebo. Against comparator antidepressants, reboxetine is at least as effective in the treatment of patients with major depressive disorder in the adult and the elderly population and offers a significant advantage over imipramine in the treatment of melancholic patients. In severely depressed patients, reboxetine was significantly more effective than fluoxetine. Reboxetine also offers significant advantages over fluoxetine in terms of social functioning and has a significantly improved adverse event profile compared with TCAs. In comparison with fluoxetine, reboxetine has a different adverse event profile, but shows advantages in terms of agitation/nervousness/anxiety and gastrointestinal events. Reboxetine is not cardiotoxic, and it is not associated with an increased risk of seizures or of orthostatic hypotension. Overall, reboxetine offers a significant safety advantage over TCAs in the treatment of the depressed population and in subsets of the depressed population in an efficacy comparison with the SSRI fluoxetine.

Efficacy and safety of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in treating depression in elderly patients

The response to antidepressants is not limited by age and there are sufficient data from the clinical trial databases to support the view that antidepressants are effective in both younger and older patients. Depression is common in the elderly although it may frequently be overlooked. Management is complicated by physiological changes associated with ageing and also by the increased likelihood of comorbid physical illness. These factors have to be taken into consideration in selecting antidepressants for the treatment of elderly patients. The older tricyclic antidepressants are associated with well known anticholinergic effects that may be a particular problem for the elderly and can have serious consequences. The development of newer antidepressants has focused on compounds that are more selective in their pharmacological effects with the aim of reducing the unwanted effects. The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have a more benign side-effect profile and are better tolerated than the older tricyclic antidepressants. There are relatively few studies carried out specifically in an elderly population but the efficacy of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors has been shown both in specific studies in the elderly and in the analyses of elderly patients included in clinical trials of new antidepressants. Their efficacy and improved safety and tolerability profile recommend them for use in the treatment of depression in elderly patients.

Implications of the severity of social phobia

This paper presents a post hoc analysis of a recent large, 12-week, placebo-controlled trial of paroxetine in the treatment of social phobia, which analyzes subgroups of patients classified as suffering from severe (Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale [LSAS] total score > or = 82, n = 85) or moderate (LSAS total score 52-81, n = 78) social phobia. With respect to the reduction in LSAS total score, the paroxetine-placebo difference was greater in patients in the severe subgroup (20.0, P < 0.001) than those in the moderate subgroup (13.7, P < 0.02). Likewise, for the number of patients rated as 'very much' or 'much' improved according to their Clinical Global Impressions improvement scores, the paroxetine-placebo difference was greater in the severe subgroup (34.2%, P < 0.001) than in the moderate subgroup (29.1%, P < 0.02). In conclusion, paroxetine is effective compared with placebo in both moderate and severe social phobia, and the response is more clear cut in patients with more severe symptoms.

Depression: a long-term illness and its treatment

Depression is a common illness that is frequently chronic or recurring. It is associated with substantial disability and therefore treatment strategies need to take into account its long-term course. The risk of relapse can be reduced provided therapy is adequate, in terms of both duration and dose, and there is now good evidence for some antidepressants that long-term treatment also reduces the risk of recurrence (i.e. new episodes of depression). This aspect of efficacy has been investigated most thoroughly with the tricyclic antidepressant imipramine and with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The clearest demonstration of the ability to reduce the risk of new episodes of depression is obtained from studies designed to test prophylaxis specifically in patients who have responded to antidepressant treatment and who have maintained their response during a period of continuation treatment to ensure resolution of the episode. The long-term efficacy of imipramine and fluoxetine was demonstrated using this design. More recently fluvoxamine was shown to be effective in reducing the risk of new episodes in a 1-year study in patients whose acute episode of depression had responded to treatment with fluvoxamine and who had remained well for 18 weeks. These prophylactic studies show that antidepressants reduce the risk of new episodes of depression, and prophylactic treatment should therefore be continued as long as the risk persists.

Mirtazapine versus amitriptyline in the long-term treatment of depression: a double-blind placebo-controlled study

Of 580 patients randomly assigned to short-term, double-blind treatment with either mirtazapine, amitriptyline or placebo, a total of 217 patients clinically judged to be responders subsequently continued on the same medication for up to 2 years in the long-term treatment study (mirtazapine, n = 74; amitriptyline, n = 86 and placebo, n = 57). The efficacy of mirtazapine in relapse prevention was seen in an analysis of the first 20 weeks data. Significantly fewer patients relapsed during treatment with mirtazapine compared with placebo (p < 0.05), and a significantly longer time to relapse was shown on the survival analysis. There was a significant advantage for amitriptyline compared with placebo in the first 20 weeks, with fewer patients relapsing. There was a significant advantage for mirtazapine compared with amitriptyline at 20 weeks seen on the survival analysis (p < 0.05). The significant advantage for mirtazapine compared with placebo was also seen in the prophylactic phase of treatment after 20 weeks. At the endpoint there were significantly more patients in the placebo group with a return of symptoms and significantly fewer showing sustained response. Amitriptyline was better than placebo with fewer patients suffering a recurrence of symptoms, but there was no difference from placebo in the proportion of patients with sustained response. Mirtazapine was well tolerated with a side-effect profile similar to that of placebo. The only adverse event reported significantly more frequently on mirtazapine than on placebo was weight gain. Objectively measured weight gain was more frequent with amitriptyline (22% of patients) compared with mirtazapine (13% of patients). Amitriptyline was associated with significantly more adverse events than either mirtazapine or placebo, in particular sedative and anticholinergic side effects. The efficacy of mirtazapine in reducing the risk of relapse and the recurrence of depression, which on some measures showed an advantage compared with amitriptyline, coupled with its improved side-effect profile, commends this antidepressant for the long-term treatment of depression.

Fluvoxamine prevents recurrence of depression: results of a long-term, double-blind, placebo-controlled study

This double-blind placebo-controlled study specifically tested the efficacy of fluvoxamine, at a dose of 100 mg a day, in reducing the risk of new episodes of depression. Out of 436 patients treated openly with fluvoxamine 283 patients fulfilled stringent criteria to define responders at 6 weeks. A total of 204 patients maintained their remission throughout a continuation treatment period of 18 weeks and then entered the prophylactic study. They were randomly assigned to receive either fluvoxamine 100 mg a day or placebo for 1 year. There were significantly fewer recurrences of new episodes of depression in the fluvoxamine group compared with the placebo group (p < 0.001). The significant advantage for fluvoxamine was also seen in the Kaplan-Meier analysis of time to recurrence (p < 0.001). The clear-cut efficacy of 100 mg of fluvoxamine and the good tolerability and side-effect profile demonstrated in this study support the view that fluvoxamine is particularly suitable for maintenance or prophylactic treatment.

Side effects, dropouts from treatment and cost consequences

Estimating the cost of treatment of depression has to take into account the quantifiable direct costs of medication, and hospital and community care, and the indirect costs such as loss of productivity, unemployment, costs of social support, etc. It also has to take into account the intangible costs to the depressed individual which are more difficult to quantify. Depression is a long-term illness and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality which contribute substantially to the indirect costs of the illness. Successful treatment can be expected to reduce the overall costs of depression to the individual and to society at large. Compliance with treatment is an essential factor in the successful treatment of depression. Meta-analyses of published papers have indicated that significantly more patients discontinue treatment with tricyclic antidepressants due to side effects than with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and therefore better tolerated antidepressants should be the first choice of treatment. Pharmacoeconomic studies that take account of the failure of treatment represented by the discontinuations due to side effects show that an apparently cheaper antidepressant like imipramine may turn out to be more expensive than the better tolerated antidepressants.

Reboxetine: additional benefits to the depressed patient

Reboxetine is a new selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor that has been shown to be effective in both the short-(4-8 weeks) and long-term (up to 12 months) treatment of depression. Four positive placebo-controlled studies showed reboxetine to have significant antidepressant efficacy; the response rate (> or = 50% decrease in HAM-D total score) with reboxetine ranging from 56-74%. Comparator-controlled trials showed reboxetine to be at least as efficacious as imipramine and desipramine in both adults and elderly patients. Reboxetine is also as effective as fluoxetine in the overall depressed population. However, subset analysis showed reboxetine to be significantly superior to fluoxetine in severely depressed patients. Reboxetine also showed significant advantages over fluoxetine in terms of social functioning, positively affecting patients' self perception and motivation towards action. The therapeutic effect of reboxetine is maintained for at least up to 1 year. During long-term therapy, 78% of patients receiving reboxetine were in remission at last assessment compared with only 45% of patients in the placebo group. Fewer reboxetine-treated patients relapsed (22%) compared with those receiving placebo (56%). In summary, reboxetine is effective in both the short- and long-term treatment of depression, and is at least as efficacious as traditional tricyclic antidepressant drugs and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The additional benefits offered by reboxetine to the depressed patient include effective long-term treatment, efficacy in all grades of depression (including severe cases) and, importantly, specific advantages on social functioning. These additional benefits make reboxetine a favourable choice in the management of depression.

Suicide and antidepressants

Suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts are an integral part of various depressions. Suicide attempts are common in major depression but even more common in recurrent brief depression, and the rate is further increased when these depressions occur comorbidly. Combined depression, where recurrent brief depression and major depression coexist, is the strongest clinical predictor of suicide attempts in the literature. There have been very few controlled studies of treatments for depression in high-risk groups of suicide attempters. Psychotherapy has been found to significantly raise the suicide attempt rate compared with conventional treatment, whereas fluoxetine and mianserin were not different from placebo. The only treatment that has been found to lower the suicide attempt rate in those with a history of previous suicide attempts is low doses of flupenthixol, a neuroleptic licensed for depression in Europe. This drug had a significant advantage compared with placebo in a six-month study. There are indications from large studies that maprotiline and amitriptyline might raise the suicide attempt rate, compared with placebo or other antidepressants, independent of their inherent toxicity in overdose. Several analyses of coroners' data show that tricyclic antidepressants are associated with high and unacceptable death rates in overdose compared with SSRIs and other safer antidepressants. Toxic antidepressants should be avoided in those thought to be at particular risk.

Social phobia: the need for treatment

Social phobia is associated with a high level of dysfunction because of the direct effect the disorder has on the ability of the individual to interact with others in social or work situations. The level of impairment and disability is seen to be as severe as and, in some cases, more severe than is seen in other chronic disorders such as depression. The disability is increased by a cascade of comorbidity which appears, in almost all cases, to be secondary to the social phobia. This paper discusses different treatment modalities and details the efficacy of moclobemide in both short- and long-term treatment. A subanalysis of those with severe to most severe social phobia at the start of treatment shows that efficacy is more clearly seen in the severe group compared with those with moderate severity. The clinical relevance of those findings is discussed here.

Brain 5-HT function in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Prolactin responses to d-fenfluramine

BACKGROUND

Drugs that potentiate brain serotonin (5-HT) neurotransmission are effective in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but it is unclear whether disturbances in brain 5-HT function play a role in the pathophysiology of OCD.

METHOD

We studied the prolactin response to the selective 5-HT releasing agent d-fenfluramine in 14 non-depressed, drug-free OCD patients, and 14 healthy controls matched for age and gender.

RESULTS

The prolactin response to d-fenfluramine was significantly increased in OCD patients compared with controls.

CONCLUSIONS

The disparate results of studies of 5-HT neuroendocrine function in OCD make it unlikely that disturbances of brain 5-HT function play a central role in the pathophysiology of OCD. Increased brain 5-HT neurotransmission in non-depressed OCD subjects may represent an adaptive neurobehavioural mechanism which can be amplified to therapeutic advantage by treatment with 5-HT potentiating drugs.

Social phobia: long-term treatment outcome and prediction of response--a moclobemide study

In this open, prospective, structured, naturalistic study of the efficacy of long-term treatment in social phobia 93 consecutive outpatients suffering from severe generalized or circumscribed social phobia (median Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale score 83) and a high degree of concomitant psychiatric disease were administered treatment with moclobemide (712 +/- 75 mg/day at steady state). Fifty-nine patients who responded (Clinical Global Impression for Change: very much/much improved) completed 2 years of treatment. Patients then entered a drug-free period of at least 1 month during which 88% of the patients deteriorated. In a further 2-year treatment period with moclobemide those patients who had deteriorated became responders again. Symptoms recurred in a substantial number of the patients at the end of the study when the dose was reduced and then discontinued. Post-study follow up at 6-24 months after study completion found that 63.2% of patients were almost asymptomatic or had only mild symptoms, 15.8% were off all treatment, 28.1% were back on moclobemide, 10.6% were taking another psychotropic drug and 8.8% were in psychotherapy. All previous non-responders to moclobemide and mostly alcohol abusers (36.9%), had moderate or severe social phobia and were off all treatment (13.3%), on psychotherapy (15.9%) or on another psychotropic drug (8.8%). Discriminant analysis correctly predicted outcome in 93.5% of all patients. Alcohol abuse was by far the strongest predictor of negative outcome. Coexisting generalized anxiety disorder and dysthymia were less potent in this regard, whereas high baseline Hamilton anxiety or depression scale scores, circumscribed social phobia, or social phobia unassociated with avoidant personality disorder were predictors of a positive outcome. In conclusion, severe social phobia can be successfully treated in the long-term but many patients may need medication or psychotherapy for many years. Treatment should start as early as possible because complications such as alcohol abuse make treatment difficult.

Fast-onset antidepressants

Research on accelerating the response to antidepressants has focused attention on the possibility of fast-acting antidepressants. A major advance has been the development of methodology for identifying rapid-response antidepressants. Such antidepressants are likely to be widely used in the future and should bring considerable relief to sufferers and to the community. How rapid the action of these drugs will be is not yet clear. Careful methodology and well conducted studies are needed to clarify the issues involved.

Is there a role for a pure noradrenergic drug in the treatment of depression?

Depression is thought to result from a dysfunction in the noradrenergic or serotonergic systems. The noradrenergic system appears to be associated with increased drive, whereas the serotonergic system relates more to changes in mood and it is possible that the different symptoms of depression may benefit from drugs acting mainly on one or other of the neurotransmitter systems. A series of studies has shown that interruption of serotonin synthesis compromises the efficacy of serotonin but not noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors, and interruption of noradrenaline synthesis compromises the efficacy of noradrenaline but not serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). This suggests that the two classes of drugs owe their activity to functional changes in different neurotransmitter systems. Reboxetine represents a new class of drugs-the selective noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (NARIs). It acts specifically at noradrenergic sites unlike the non-selective tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs). NARIs have a role in the treatment of depression, either alone or as adjunctive therapy.

Milnacipran, a new serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor: an overview of its antidepressant activity and clinical tolerability

Milnacipran (Ixel) is a new antidepressant with essentially equal potency for inhibiting the reuptake of both serotonin and noradrenaline, with no affinity for any neurotransmitter receptor studied. A review of the studies comparing milnacipran, placebo and active comparator antidepressants provides clear-cut evidence of its efficacy in both severe and moderate depression in hospitalized and community settings. Meta-analyses of the original data of controlled trials involving 1032 patients, comparing milnacipran with imipramine or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), show that milnacipran provides antidepressant efficacy similar to that of imipramine and significantly superior to that of the SSRIs. An analysis of a database of over 3300 patients shows that both the general and cardiovascular tolerability of milnacipran are superior to those of the tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) with fewer cholinergic side-effects. The tolerability of milnacipran was comparable to that of the SSRIs, with a higher incidence of dysuria with milnacipran, and a higher frequency of nausea and anxiety with the SSRIs. Milnacipran is a new therapeutic option in depression, which offers a clinical efficacy in the range of the TCAs combined with a tolerability equivalent to that of the SSRIs.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in older patients. A tolerability perspective

Depression is a serious illness that is common in the elderly but which is frequently overlooked. Management is complicated by physiological changes associated with aging, the presence of comorbid physical illness, and compliance problems; these factors must be taken into account when selecting an appropriate antidepressant. The well known problems associated with the tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) [i.e. their unwanted anticholinergic, adrenergic and histaminergic effects], which are troublesome in younger patients, can have serious consequences for elderly depressed patients. The TCAs can cause symptoms that worsen concomitant physical illness, which is frequently present in the elderly, and their cardiotoxicity in overdose is of concern in both younger and older patients. The selective serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT) reuptake inhibitors have been shown to be as efficacious as the TCAs in the general depressed population, but to lack the anticholinergic adverse effects and cardiotoxicity associated with those drugs. Their increased safety and tolerability makes them a preferred treatment for depressed elderly patients.

Prevalence of anxiety disorders comorbidity in bipolar depression, unipolar depression and dysthymia

Eighty-seven patients with current episode of depression were assessed by the SCID-P and subdivided in bipolar depressives (N = 24), unipolar depressives (n = 38) and dysthymics (n = 25). Anxiety disorders comorbidity in these three groups was investigated by means of the SCID-P. Panic disorder comorbidity was found in 36.8% of bipolar depressives, 31.4% of unipolar depressives and 13% of dysthymics. Prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder was 21.1% in bipolars, 14.3% in unipolars and 8.7% in dysthymics. Generalized anxiety disorder resulted in being much more associated with dysthymia (65.2%) than with bipolar (31.6%) or unipolar depression (37.1%). Social phobia comorbidity was exhibited mainly by unipolars (11.4%), while no cases were detected in the bipolar group. Odds ratios revealed that generalized anxiety disorder is significantly more likely to co-occur with dysthymia. Panic disorder showed a higher trend to be associated with bipolar and unipolar depression. Social phobia was more frequent among unipolar depression.