Peripheral vascular endothelial growth factor level is associated with antidepressant treatment response: Results of a preliminary study

Neurotrophic factors in depression in response to treatment

“…In contrast to most other studies, we observed a significant decrease in VEGF levels upon antidepressant treatment (Iga et al, 2007;Ventriglia et al, 2009;Minelli et al, 2011;Halmai et al, 2013;Fornaro et al, 2013). The experimental designs of these studies were different, and consequently it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions.…”

“…Most of these were in accordance with our study and showed no correlation (Iga et al, 2007;Minelli et al, 2011;Lee and Kim, 2012;Halmai et al, 2013). One study showed a negative correlation between HRSD depression score and serum VEGF levels (Kotan et al, 2012), and another showed a positive correlation between BDI depression score and serum VEGF levels (Kahl et al, 2009).…”

“…One study showed a negative correlation between HRSD depression score and serum VEGF levels (Kotan et al, 2012), and another showed a positive correlation between BDI depression score and serum VEGF levels (Kahl et al, 2009). These studies may, however, not be directly comparable to our study as two measured VEGF in plasma (Lee and Kim, 2012;Halmai et al, 2013), and one in mRNA (Iga et al, 2007). To our knowledge, only three studies, including 12, 19 and 40 individuals with depression, respectively, have previously investigated the correlation between serum VEGF and depression severity at baseline (Kahl et al, 2009;Minelli et al, 2011;Kotan et al, 2012).…”

“…Clinical evidence on the effect of antidepressants on VEGF levels is insufficient and inconclusive. However, most published studies found no significant differences in VEGF mRNA, plasma or serum levels in response to treatment (Iga et al, 2007;Ventriglia et al, 2009;Halmai et al, 2013;Fornaro et al, 2013).…”

Increased levels of vascular endothelial growth factor in patients with major depressive disorder: A meta-analysis

“…In addition, we did not perform meta-regression of the chlorpromazine equivalent and VEGF levels because of the small number of studies. However, some studies have investigated the effect of treatment on peripheral VEGF and revealed no significant changes in VEGF after adequate treatment (Dome et al, 2012;Halmai et al, 2013). In addition, in our subgroup meta-analysis, we still found similar results when we recruited studies using only subjects who were drug free.…”