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Comparison of Venlafaxine and Fluoxetine in the Treatment of Postmenopausal Women With Major Depression

NCT01824433 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: PHASE4 · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 189

Last updated 2017-09-14

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Women are more prone to depression at certain points of the life cycle, although the etiologic and therapeutic implications remain largely unknown1,2. It is reported that pre- and postmenopausal women have a significant difference in response to some antidepressants, within a large clinical trial data set3, 4. A growing number of researches indicate that a woman's hormonal status may influence response to different forms of antidepressant medication. Specifically, younger women appeared to respond better to monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs), whereas men and older women have tended to have relatively better responses to tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs) 1-5. One difference between these classes of antidepressants is that the SSRIs are strongly serotoninergic, whereas TCAs have predominantly noradrenergic effects. One pooled analysis 6 suggests that older women (age ≥ 50) tend to respond poorer to SSRI, while this phenomenen was not observed with venlafaxine.

The antidepressive mechanism of venlafaxine that has both noradrenergic and serotonergic effects is superior to SSRIs. As a noradrenergic and serotonergic antidepressant, venlafaxinee has been demonstrated of significant advantages in response and remission rates compared with various SSRIs. As mentioned above, older women tend to have relatively better responses to TCAs which is predominantly noradrenergic antidepressant. Postmenopausal women with depression also would be predicted to respond better to an SSRI if administered along with hormone replacement therapy 6. This could be critical to understanding age difference in antidepressant responses across the life cycle because circulating estrogen levels may modulate central serotoninergic pathways. Therefore, it is presumed that antidepressants which enhance both serotonergic and noradrenergic neurotransmission, as venlafaxine, may be more effective than SSRIs for postmenopausal women with major depressive disorder.

Conditions

Interventions

DRUG

venlafaxine

venlafaxine 75-225mg qd

DRUG

fluoxetine

fluoxetine 20-60mg qd

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Capital Medical University

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Gang Wang, M.D.,Ph.D · Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
50 Years
Max Age
80 Years
Sex
FEMALE
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2013-03-07
Primary Completion
2017-03-16
Completion
2017-03-16

Countries

  • China

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT01824433 on ClinicalTrials.gov