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Efficacy and safety of antidepressant augmentation with lamotrigine in patients with treatment-resistant depression: a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study.

Author(s): Santos MA, Rocha FL, Hara C

Affiliation(s): Mental Health Service of the City Hall of Belo Horizonte ; Institute of Social Security of the Civil Servants of Minas Gerais-IPSEMG ; and Faculdade de Saude e Ecologia Humana, Vespasiano , Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Publication date & source: 2008, Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry., 10(3):187-90.

Objective: This study reports a clinical trial evaluating lamotrigine safety and efficacy as an antidepressant augmentation agent in treatment-resistant depression, therefore adding more empirical evidence to the limited number of studies on the use of lamotrigine.Method: A double-blind pilot study was conducted between March 2004 and January 2006 with 34 nonbi-polar, nonpsychotic patients who had DSM-IV major depressive disorder and were resistant to at least 2 anti-depressants. The subjects were taking antidepressant therapy and were randomly assigned to receive placebo or lamotrigine as an adjunct therapy for 8 weeks. They were evaluated on a biweekly basis in order to assess the efficacy and the safety of the drug. Efficacy was measured with the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and the Clinical Global Impressions (CGI) scale. Response was defined as a decrease of at least 50% from baseline on the MADRS and a final score </= 2 on the CGI. Safety was assessed by keeping record of treatment-emergent adverse events.Results: The results of the adjunct treatment with lamotrigine did not reveal a significant difference according to the MADRS (p = .45). No differences between the 2 treatment groups were revealed by the repeated-measures analysis of variance or by the analysis based on the CGI (p = .45). More than 50% of the patients had been treated with at least 3 different anti-depressants. The most frequent adverse events were nausea, rash, and dyspepsia in the lamotrigine group and dizziness and headache in the placebo group.Conclusions: In this study, although it was safe, lamotrigine was not found to be an efficient augmentation agent in treatment-resistant depression. Small sample size, higher chronicity, and refractoriness may be related to treatment failure.Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00652171.

Page last updated: 2008-08-11

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