Treatment-resistant depression:
new therapies on the horizon
by
Trivedi MH.
Depression and Anxiety Disorders Program,
The University of Texas,
Southwestern Medical School,
Dallas, Texas, USA.
madhukar.trivedi@utsouthwestern.edu
Ann Clin Psychiatry. 2003 Mar;15(1):59-70

ABSTRACT

Managing patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) remains a major challenge for the practicing physician. Depression is considered treatment-resistant when at least two adequate monotherapy trials with drugs from different pharmacologic classes fail to elicit a therapeutic response. Although determining the stage of TRD may allow concise description of a patient's antidepressant history, management of TRD is better served by recent attempts to create a treatment algorithm that encompasses definitive diagnosis of true TRD and strategies for optimizing available therapies, including consideration of novel treatment options. Present strategies for managing TRD include optimization of the initial drug, substitution of another drug from the same or a different antidepressant class, combination of two antidepressants with different mechanisms of action, and adding an antidepressant drug from another class. Potential nonpharmacologic treatments include vagus nerve stimulation, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, and magnetic seizure therapy as an alternative to electroconvulsive therapy. Several neuropeptides and their receptors have also been identified as potential targets for pharmacologic intervention, including corticotropin-releasing factor and substance P. Other treatments currently under investigation include augmentation of antidepressant therapy with an atypical antipsychotic agent such as olanzapine or risperidone. This kind of therapeutic intervention may prove to be especially useful in treating patients with TRD.

TMS
CRF
NMDA
Antisense
SSRIs/SNRIs
Comparisons
Neurotrophins
New anxiolytics
Antidepressants
Vagus stimulation
Chronic depression
Atypical depression
Residual depression
Retarded depression
New antidepressants
Refractory depression
Neurokinins/Substance P
Antidepressants: how fast?
Antidepressants and the brain
Early-onset antidepressant strategies
Active placebos v antidepressants for depression
Somatic symptoms in treatment-resistant depression

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