Quetiapine in the Treatment of Psychotic Depression - a Pilot Study
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2012-07-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Atypical antipsychotics have been found not only to be beneficial in the treatment of
psychotic disorders, but even for depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.
Remarkably, preliminary data suggest that the atypical antipsychotic quetiapine has
antidepressive properties. Until now, there is limited knowledge concerning the efficacy of
quetiapine in major depressive illness and especially in psychotic depression. In our own
clinical practice, several patients with psychotic depression were successfully treated with
quetiapine as add-on therapy or as monotherapy. On the background of that, the convincing
effects of quetiapine in bipolar depression, single-case reports and pilot studies concerning
its effectiveness in depressive mood states in psychotic disorders as well as our clinical
experiences, it is to assume that a treatment with quetiapine over a 6 weeks period show
similar effects in major depressive episode with psychotic features, i.e. psychotic
depression. In this pilot study we plan to investigate 20 patients with psychotic features of
depression under treatment with quetiapine.