| Literature DB >> 74566 |
A Coppen, K Ghose, S Montgomery, V A Rama Rao, J Bailey, J Christiansen, P L Mikkleson, H M van Praag, F van de Poel, E J Minsker, V G Kozulja, N Matussek, G Kungkunz, A Jłrgensen.
Abstract
54 patients in five centres participated in a study of the relationship between steady-state plasma-levels of amitriptyline (AT) and its active metabolite nortriptyline (NT) and therapeutic response. The participants were inpatients who, after a 7-12 day period of assessment, were rated greater than or equal to 16 on the Hamilton rating scale for depression. They were given 75 mg of amitriptyline for 3 days and then 150 mg daily for an active-treatment period of 6 weeks. Clinical ratings and plasma-samples were obtained at baseline then at 2, 4, and 6 weeks after starting therapy. Contrary to the findings of three previous trials, no important correlations were found between steady-state plasma-levels and therapeutic outcome or corrected side-effects. Corrected side-effects correlated negatively with therapeutic outcome. There seems little advantage in routine monitoring of AT and NT, since variations in plasma-levels do not account for the considerable variation in therapeutic outcome.Entities:
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Year: 1978 PMID： 74566 DOI： 10.1016/s0140-6736(78)90003-x
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Lancet ISSN： 0140-6736 Impact factor: 79.321