Quetiapine as Treatment of Severe Depressive Disorder

Overview

The foreword of the article summarizes some important statistical facts about major depressivedisorder. Then the authors discuss the possibilities of augmentation of the antidepressivetherapy, in case of its insuffi cient effect or its failure, mainly by using drugs from the group ofatypical antipsychotics (AP). From this group of medicaments they chose quetiapin. On the basisof retrospective analysis of medical documentation they selected 24 patients, admitted at theDepartment of Psychiatry of Military Hospital in Brno with the diagnosis of the affective disorderwithin the years 2002–2003, to whom quetiapin was used as augmentation of the already adjustedtherapy with antidepressant. In the article the authors analyze in detail the selected group focussingon the history of mental diseases, present psychopharmacotherapy, and they also monitor psychiatriccomorbidity. At the initiation of treatment with quetiapin they assessed the time needed for titrationtherapeutic doses in days, maximal doses achieved, the average doses during hospitalization anddoses at dismissal into outpatient care. Finally they evaluate the benefi t of using quetiapin fortreatment and the incidence of side-effects in the whole selected group. In conclusion they tried tosummarize their experience with the use of atypical antipsychotics as augmentation of the affectivedisorders with references to available medical literature.

Key words:
depressive disorder, quetiapin, augmentation.