Promising Efficacy Against Treatment-resistant Depression

Patients with treatment-resistant depression may benefit from improved symptoms through pharmacogenetic testing as per a study at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, published in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

The 52-week double-blind study is the first of its kind in Canada that involved 276 patients who had been previously diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression.

‘Pharmacogenetic testing guided management for treatment-resistant depression is associated with nearly a two-fold (89 percent) increase in remission rates compared to treatment as usual.’

"Remission, or full recovery from symptoms, is one of the most challenging endpoints to achieve when treating major depressive disorder . The findings from this study contribute the first randomized, controlled data in Canada to the growing body of evidence of the clinical value of combined multi-gene pharmacogenetic testing," says senior author Dr. James Kennedy, Head of the Tanenbaum Centre for Pharmacogenetics at the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute at CAMH.

"Myriad Genetics is proud to support this important study that advances our knowledge of the utility of pharmacogenetic testing in Canadian patients suffering from treatment-resistant major depressive disorder. Although the CAMH trial was underpowered, it is encouraging that the results largely replicate prior studies in American patients, reinforcing the generalizability of pharmacogenetic testing for depression across health care settings," says Jay Elliott, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Myriad Genetics.

Source: Medindia