Fluvoxamine monotherapy for psychotic depression the potential role of sigma-1 receptors.docVIP

Annals of General Psychiatry BioMedCentral Case report Open Access Fluvoxamine monotherapy for psychotic depression: the potential role of sigma-1 receptors Tsutomu Furuse*1 and Kenji Hashimoto2 Address: 1Department of Psychiatry, Asahikawa Red Cross Hospital, Asahikawa, Japan and 2Division of Clinical Neuroscience, Chiba University Center for Forensic Mental Health, Chiba, Japan Email: Tsutomu Furuse* - furuse@asahikawa-rch.gr.jp; Kenji Hashimoto - hashimoto@faculty.chiba-u.jp * Corresponding author Published: 21 December 2009 Received: 10 November 2009 Accepted: 21 December 2009 Annals of General Psychiatry 2009, 8:26 doi:10.1186/1744-859X-8-26 This article is available from: /content/8/1/26 ? 2009 Furuse and Hashimoto; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Psychotic depression is a clinical subtype of major depressive disorder. A number of clinical studies have demonstrated the efficacy of the combination of an antidepressant (for example, a tricyclic antidepressant or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)) and an atypical antipsychotic or electroconvulsive therapy in treating psychotic depression. In some cases, the clinician or patient may prefer to avoid antipsychotic drugs altogether because of the risk of extrapyramidal side effects (EPS) in patients with psychotic depression treated with these drugs. Methods: We report five cases where fluvoxamine monotherapy was effective in the patients with psychotic depression. Results: The scores on the Hamilton Depression (HAM-D) scale and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) in the five patients with psychotic depression were reduced after fluvoxamine monotherapy. Conclusion: Doctors