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Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology, Vol. 39, No. 3, 2009
Experience of the Use of Velaxin (Venlafaxine) in Anxious Depression
N. A. Ilina
Translated from Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S. S. Korsakova, Vol. 108, No. 3, pp. 2428, March, 2008.
Thirty patients (seven men and 23 women, mean age 35.3 7.8 years) with anxious and anxious-apathic depression were studied. Of these, 24 patients were treated in hospital and six in out-patient clinics. Patients were treated for eight weeks with venlafaxine at doses of 225375 mg/day. Mental state was assessed using a series of scales (CGI, HDRS, BDI, HADS-21). A total of 27 patients (90%) completed treatment. There were 25 (83.3%) responders on the CGI scale: improvement in mental state occurred in 16 (59.3%) of patients and marked improvement occurred in nine (33.3%). Insignificant improvement was seen in two cases (7.4%). Complete elimination of symptoms of depression occurred in 33.3% of cases. Velaxin was found to be safe at intermediate therapeutic doses and there were improvements in laboratory results characterizing patients somatic status.
KEY WORDS: velaxin (venlafaxine), treatment, anxious depression.
Reports in recent years have provided evidence of a high level of depression from 2% to 15%, a significant proportion (42.3%) of cases consisting of affective disorders of relatively mild severity [11, 16]. This relates predominantly to comorbid anxiety states and hypothymic states producing a wide variety of symptoms and characterized by lower levels of curability and poorer prognoses than in isolated anxiety and depressive disorders [13].
Contemporaneous studies on the treatment of anxious-depressive states, along with traditional methods of treatment using tricyclic antidepressants, address the efficacy and safety of new-generation thymoleptics which have more selective psychotropic activity and better profiles of undesired effects [1315]. The best studied gold standard for the efficacy of new antidepressants in comparative studies [2, 3, 8, 10, 12,18] is the first member of the third generation of thymoleptics, the double-action antidepressant venlafaxine (Velaxin).
Venlafaxine has thus far been used mainly in severe and moderately severe depressions, while its efficacy in mild hypothymic states has received insufficient study.
The aim of the present work was to investigate the therapeutic efficacy, safety, and tolerance of Velaxin in the treatment of anxious depression.
This was an open, uncontrolled study.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
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