A RANDOMIZED, DOUBLE-BLIND COMPARISON OF A RAPIDLY ESCALATING DOSE OFVENLAFAXINE AND IMIPRAMINE IN INPATIENTS WITH MAJOR DEPRESSION AND MELANCHOLIA

A double-blind, randomized, parallel study in 167 hospitalized patient s with major depression and melancholia was conducted to determine if rapidly escalated doses of venlafaxine produced an earlier response, c ompared with rapidly escalated doses of imipramine. The daily dose of venlafaxine was rapidly increased to 375 mg/day over a five-day period , was maintained at this level for 10 days, and then was reduced to 15 0 mg/day for the remainder of the study. The imipramine dose was rapid ly increased to 200 mg/day over five days and was maintained at this l evel to the end of the study. The primary efficacy variables were time to response and time to sustained response on the HAM-D and MADRS. No differences in the response rates on the HAM-D or MADRS were observed between treatments. However, among patients who demonstrated a respon se on the HAM-D, there was a significantly faster onset of response (p = 0.036) and sustained response (p = 0.018)in the venlafaxine group. The median time to response on the HAM-D among responders was 14 days with venlafaxine and 21 days with imipramine. However, no differences between treatments were observed among responders on the MADRS (median time to response: 15 days for venlafaxine, 18 days for imipramine). S tudy events were reported in 69% of venlafaxine-treated patients and 7 6% of imipramine-treated patients. In severely depressed patients with melancholia, a faster onset of response was observed with venlafaxine on the HAM-D, but not the MADRS, and maximal tolerated doses of venla faxine and imipramine were comparable for overall efficacy. These resu lts confirm and extend previous observations and suggest that venlafax ine may have an early onset of action and may produce a rapid response in hospitalized patients with severe depression complicated by melanc holia. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.