Differential efficacy of escitalopram and nortriptyline on dimensional measures of depression

Abstract

The three symptom dimensions provided sensitive descriptors of differential antidepressant response and enabled identification of drug-specific effects.

Genetic Predictors of Increase in Suicidal Ideation During Antidepressant Treatment in the GENDEP Project

“…Therefore, 796 subjects (254 'cases' and 542 'controls,' Table 1) were available for this analysis. The sample has been described in detail elsewhere (Perroud et al, submitted;Uher et al, 2009b). In brief, participants were included if they met criteria for a major depressive episode of at least moderate severity, as defined by the DSM-IV and/or ICD-10 criteria, established using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN Version 2.1).…”

“…Nortriptyline was selected in preference to the even more selective reboxetine, as reboxetine has a less robust Genetic predictors of suicidality N Perroud et al efficacy record (Cipriani et al, 2009). Patients with no contraindications were randomly allocated to receive flexible dosage nortriptyline (50-150 mg daily) or escitalopram (10-30 mg daily) for 12 weeks, within a defined range Uher et al, 2009b). Patients with contraindications for one of the drugs were allocated nonrandomly to the other antidepressant.…”

Interaction between serotonin transporter gene variants and life events predicts response to antidepressants in the GENDEP project

“…A detailed description of the sample is available elsewhere. 22 In brief, 811 participants aged between 18 and 75 were recruited from nine treatment centres in eight European countries. Participants were of white European parentage and diagnosed with moderate to severe major depressive disorder using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry.…”

“…php) was designed to investigate both genetic and clinical predictors of response to two antidepressants with different modes of action: escitalopram (an SSRI) and nortriptyline (a tricyclic antidepressant). 22 Escitalopram is the most selective SSRI in terms of its affinity for the serotonin transporter, whereas nortriptyline has a far greater affinity for the norepinephrine transporter than the serotonin transporter.…”

Copy number variants and therapeutic response to antidepressant medication in major depressive disorder

“…Proportional improvement in depression severity was created for each component study based on the primary depression rating scale from baseline to the end of treatment, adjusted for age, sex and recruiting centre. Depression severity was measured by one of three primary rating scales (Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Rating Scale, Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, Beck Depression Inventory) (18). The adjusted change score for each component study was z-transformed within each study to remove correlation between data origin and outcome and to eliminate study specific effects.…”