The use of cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors in depression: a narrative review of the state of evidence

Abstract

Multiple lines of evidence suggest that inflammation contribute to the pathophysiology of depression. Various studies have found that patients with major depression have higher levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines like interleukin-1, interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha and C-reactive protein. As a consequence of above findings this narrative literature review was done to look for the role of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibitors in the patients of depression. A web based search was done using the keywords like antidepressants, anti-inflammatory treatment, celecoxib, depression, neuro inflammation in well recognized databases like PubMed, Google scholar from the year 2006 to 2019 to come out with data that matches our inclusion criteria that have been pooled and critically analyzed. Although the exact mechanism remains to become elucidated the results suggest that COX-2 have beneficial role in treatment of depression and it may be used as an adjunct to the anti-depressant treatment as it may hasten the response to current treatment without any serious side effects.