Is There an Advantage to Venlafaxine in Comparison with Other Antidepressants?

✍ Scribed by OTTO BENKERT; GERHARD GRÜNDER; HERMANN WETZEL

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 241 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6222
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1077(199701/02)12:1<53::aid-hup837>3.0.co;2-5

✦ Synopsis

The purpose of this article s to compare and contrast the bene®ts and limitations of antidepressant drugs. Several dierent classes of antidepressants are available for treatment of major depressive disorder, each with its own bene®ts and limitations as a result of its pharmacological pro®le. Tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) and monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors are eective in a large proportion of depressed patients, but their use is often limited by short-and long-term safety/tolerability problems. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) exhibit comparable ecacy to TCAs in most patients, but may be less eective in certain patients. Additionally, SSRI use may by impacted by clinically signi®cant drug interactions. Venlafaxine is a selective serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) with unique pharmacological properties that may enhance its ecacy as well as its safety pro®le. In clinical trials, venlafaxine exhibits antidepressant activity in a broad range of patients with major depression, including those with melancholia, agitated or retarded symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and refractory or resistant depression. Venlafaxine has shown potential for an early onset of action and oers dose ¯exibility that may allow recruitment of additional responders at higher dosages. Because of its lack of anity for muscarinic cholinergic, histaminergic, and alpha 1 -adrenergic receptors, venlafaxine has a safety pro®le that is superior to that of TCAs. Venlafaxine also is devoid of the drug interactions characteristic of SSRIs.