Posted by SLS on July 16, 2006, at 7:27:45
In reply to Re: couldn't have said it better myself, posted by SLS on July 16, 2006, at 5:49:59
> > "That is why the rate of placebo response is so high, and perhaps why the rate of response for the active compound is so low."
> >
> > Well, seeing as these drugs were approved based on the fact that they could undepress regular, non genetically chemically imballenced mice coupled with the fact that these drugs have never been proven by any strech of the imagination to correct any genuine depression related chemical imballences, I would have to disagree with the above comment.
>
> Mice are a model to screen for drugs, nothing more. You are disagreeing with human results. Studies using people chosen with more severe depression have lower placebo response rates.
-------------------------------------------------
Just one more from Google:
Severity of Depression and Response to Antidepressants and Placebo: An Analysis of the Food and Drug Administration Database.Articles
Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. 22(1):40-45, February 2002.
Khan, Arif MD *+; Leventhal, Robyn M. BA *; Khan, Shirin R. *; Brown, Walter A. MD ++Abstract:
Some studies suggest that more severely ill patients with depression respond well to antidepressants and poorly to placebo, whereas those who are mildly ill respond equally well to antidepressants and placebo. This notion has implications for the design of clinical trials. To further assess and substantiate these putative predictors of antidepressant and placebo response, we assessed the Food and Drug Administration database of 45 phase II and III antidepressant clinical trials. The frequency of statistically significant differences between antidepressants and placebo was higher in the trials that included patients with more severe depression. In the antidepressant-treated groups, the magnitude of symptom reduction was signif-icantly related to mean initial Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D) score; the higher the mean initial HAM-D score, the larger the change. With placebo treatment, however, the higher the mean initial HAM-D score, the smaller the change. Early discontinuation was more frequent among patients whose mean initial HAM-D scores were higher. These data may help inform the design of future antidepressant clinical trials.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:662854
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060709/msgs/667448.html