Are antidepressants working faster than initially thought?


Antidepressant benefit may be apparent sooner
Timothy F. Kirn
TORONTO - Most clinical recommendations advise that patients who start an antidepressant be given 4-6 weeks to see whether they respond and have improvement.
But an analysis of more than 5,000 patients treated in clinical trials with a variety of antidepressants suggests that most patients who respond well start to improve within 2 weeks, Dr. Armin Szegedi said at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.
"This is a very strong, clinically relevant, and, perhaps to many, a surprising finding," said Dr. Szegedi, executive director of clinical projects, psychiatry, at Organon International Inc., Rosalind, N.J., in an interview.
The analysis included patients who were treated with six different, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, including paroxetine (Paxil) and fluoxetine; two tricyclic antidepressants, amitriptyline and doxepin; and venlafaxine (Effexor), a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor.
More...© 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

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