Posted by jrbecker on May 19, 2004, at 11:18:08
courtesy of McMan's Depression and Bipolar Web
http://www.mcmanweb.com/news.htm
APA Meeting (May 10, 2004)Some meds studies that came out of the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting earlier this month:
A study of 531 bipolar I and II patients with depression found that 300 or 600/mg/day of Seroquel resulted in drops in HAM-D scores of 13.8 and 13.4 (vs 8.5 placebo) and drops in MADRS scores of 16.7 and 16.4 (vs 10.2 placebo). Thirty-one recent reported sedation. An analysis of anxious and depressed bipolar patients from the same pool found that 300 or 600 mg/day of Seroquel monotherapy reduced their HAM-A scores by 8.6 and 8.7 points vs 5.5 for the placebo group. Thirty-one percent reported sedation.
An open-label Janssen study of 386 patients with major depression who failed to respond to Celexa found that adding low dose Risperdal resulted in 59.3 percent remission after six weeks. A double-blind relapse prevention study is in progress. Another Janssen study, this time a chart review of 131 patients with major depression found "similar overall effectiveness" during initial treatment for Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa.
Three from Cephalon. One open-label study of 17 depressed or anxious patients reporting sedating side effects from their SSRIs found that adding the wakefulness med Provigil resulted in improved wakefulness, decreased sleep, and improved mood as early as weeks one and two. A second open-label study of 37 found that Provigil as monotherapy in patients with atypical depression resulted in "significant improvement in depression" after 12 weeks. Eighty-one percent completed the study. A third study of 331 patients with major depression who had not responded or partially responded to their SSRI found that adding Provigil resulted in "a trend toward greater mean reductions" in HAM-D scores and "significantly higher rates of improvement" on the CGI-C after eight weeks.
A UCB Pharma open-label trial of 200 bipolar patients (ages five to 69) on the anticonvulsant Keppra found that "efficacy was good in roughly 50 percent of patients and partial in an additional 20 percent." Sedation occurred in nine percent of the sample and was the cause of four percent dropping out.
A Stanford University study of 30 patients with psychotic major depression unresponsive to their meds found that adding the morning-after pill RU-486 (mifepristone) resulted in greater improvement than in the controls and in normalization of their elevated cortisol activity.
An Elan Biopharmaceuticals chart review of 40 patients with depression or bipolar found that the anticonvulsant Zonigram added to their medication resulted in improvements based on different indicators. Seventeen patients lost a mean of 8.2 pounds while 11 gained a mean of 7.9 pounds and 12 experienced no weight change.
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poster:jrbecker
thread:348561
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040515/msgs/348561.html