Accelerating response to antidepressant treatment in depression: a possible role for atypical antipsychotics.

摘要

I have read with interest the paper by Dr. Nakajima and colleagues (Nakajima et al., 2010) which was recently published in your journal. Hence I would like to complement some data regarding the use of atypical antipsychotics as an augmentation therapy for major depressive disorder (MDD) patients, in particular relating to effects of these agents on early response. In fact, aripiprazole (firstly approved on Nov 2007) and quetiapine extended release (XR) (secondly approved on Dec 2009) have been approved for such indication by the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and thereby these two medications are the officially approved medications for treating MDD as an augmentation therapy till today, while other augmentation treatment options are still under development and debates on their use for treating MDD.