Escitalopram Improves Depression In Patients Treated In Primary Care

Patients with major depression can show improvement after only one week of therapy with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, escitalopram.

Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scores improved at week one with a dosage of 10 milligrams per day, say researchers from the Clinical Research Centre in Glasgow, Scotland and International Clinical Research in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The patients participating in this eight-week, double-blind trial all received one week of placebo. All had major depressive disorder. In week two, the investigators randomised 191 to received escitalipram and 189 patients to placebo.

Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) scores improved in the patients randomised to escitalopram; their Clinical Global Impression-Severity scores improved in week three.

"Primary efficacy analysis of adjusted mean change in MADRS total score from baseline showed a statistically significantly larger effect for escitalopram than for placebo," the researchers say.

At eight weeks, the treatment different was 2.7 points for escitalopram patients compared to placebo patients.

Escitalopram was also well tolerated, the researchers add. Nausea, reported in more escitalopram patients than placebo patients, was infrequent and transient.

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