Duloxetine in the acute and continuation treatment of major depressive disorder

Abstract

Duloxetine is a serotonin–noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor with indications for use in the short term, continuation and maintenance treatment of major depression. Although clinicians currently have access to a range of medications for the treatment of depression, a significant number of patients fail to respond or remit from their illness despite adequate trials of treatment with multiple agents. A developing concept is that antidepressant strategies that combine multiple mechanisms of action may have advantages over agents with single mechanisms (i.e., selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors). As a dual-acting agent, duloxetine offers the promise of advantages in terms of efficacy over selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors while retaining a favorable safety and tolerability profile in comparison to older agents. Likewise, duloxetine is of interest in the treatment of certain conditions commonly seen in conjunction with major depression, particularly anxiety and pain, both of which may respond more favorably to agents that act on both serotonin and noradrenaline neurotransmitter systems.

Keywords::

• depression
• duloxetine
• major depressive disorder
• review
• serotonin–noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor

Financial & competing interests disclosure

Trevor R Norman has served on advisory boards and/or received honoraria for travel, talks or research from AstraZeneca, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli-Lilly, Janssen, Lundbeck, Organon, Pfizer, Servier and Wyeth in the past 5 years.

James S Olver has received honoraria for travel, talks or research from AstraZeneca, Eli-Lilly, Janssen, Glaxo-Smith-Kline and Pfizer in the past 5 years.

The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.