The localization of substance P in brain regions that coordinate stress responses and receive convergent monoaminergic innervation suggested that substance P antagonists might have psychotherapeutic properties. Like clinically used antidepressant and anxiolytic drugs, substance P antagonists suppressed isolation-induced vocalizations in guinea pigs. In a placebo-controlled trial in patients with moderate to severe major depression, robust antidepressant effects of the substance P antagonist MK-869 were consistently observed. In preclinical studies, substance P antagonists did not interact with monoamine systems in the manner seen with established antidepressant drugs. These findings suggest that substance P may play an important role in psychiatric disorders.

Compared with standard dual therapy, addition of aprepitant was generally well tolerated and provided consistently superior protection against CINV in patients receiving highly emetogenic cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

Inflammatory mechanisms have been implicated in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and might be mediated via the COX-2 enzyme. Previous studies with the selective COX-2 inhibitors, rofecoxib and celecoxib, have shown that they do not alter the progression of AD. We conducted a double-blind study to investigate whether rofecoxib could delay a diagnosis of AD in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a group with an expected annual AD diagnosis rate of 10-15%. MCI patients X65 years were randomized to rofecoxib 25 mg (N ¼ 725) or placebo (N ¼ 732) daily for up to 4 years. The primary end point was the percentage of patients with a clinical diagnosis of AD. The estimated annual AD diagnosis rate was lower than the anticipated 10-15%: 6.4% in the rofecoxib group vs 4.5% in the placebo group (rofecoxib : placebo hazard ratio ¼ 1.46 (95% CI: 1.09, 1.94), p ¼ 0.011). Analyses of secondary end points, including measures of cognition (eg the cognitive subscale of the AD Assessment Scale (ADAS-Cog)) and global function (eg the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR)), did not demonstrate differences between treatment groups. There was also no consistent evidence that rofecoxib differed from placebo in post hoc analyses comparing ADAS-Cog and CDR-sum of boxes scores in overlapping subgroups of patients who had Mini Mental State Exam scores of 24-26 in the present MCI study and in a previous AD treatment study with a similar design. The results from this MCI study did not support the hypothesis that rofecoxib would delay a diagnosis of AD. In conjunction with the lack of effects observed in previous AD studies, the findings suggest that inhibition of COX-2 is not a useful therapeutic approach in AD.

Rizatriptan is a potent, oral, 5-HT1B/1D agonist with more rapid absorption and higher bioavailability than oral sumatriptan. It was postulated that this would result in more rapid onset of effect. This randomized, double-blind, triple-dummy, parallel-groups study compared rizatriptan 5 mg, rizatriptan 10 mg, sumatriptan 100 mg, and placebo in 1268 outpatients treating a single migraine attack. Headache relief rates after rizatriptan 10 mg were consistently higher than sumatriptan at all time points up to 2 hours, with significance at 1 hour (37% versus 28%, P = 0.010). All active agents were significantly superior to placebo with regard to headache relief and pain freedom at 2 hours (P < or = 0.001). The primary efficacy endpoint of time to pain relief through 2 hours demonstrated that, after adjustment for age imbalance, rizatriptan 10 mg had earlier onset than sumatriptan 100 mg (P = 0.032; hazard ratio 1.21). Rizatriptan 10 mg was also superior to sumatriptan on pain-free response (P = 0.032), reduction in functional disability (P = 0.015), and relief of nausea at 2 hours (P = 0.010). Significantly fewer drug-related clinical adverse events were reported after rizatriptan 10 mg (33%, P = 0.014) compared with sumatriptan 100 mg (41%). We conclude that rizatriptan 10 mg has a rapid onset of action and relieves headache and associated symptoms more effectively than sumatriptan 100 mg.