IS PLATELET IMIPRAMINE BINDING REDUCED IN DEPRESSION - A METAANALYSIS

Although it has been suggested that decreased platelet imipramine bind ing may be a putative biological marker of depressive illness, a numbe r of studies have not confirmed this finding, including a recent multi center investigation by the World Health Organization (Mellerup and La nger 1990). We performed a meta-analysis of published reports on imipr amine binding in groups of depressed and healthy control subjects and found that there was a highly significant decrease in B-max (maximal b inding) values in the depressed subject groups, which was even greater among those who had been free of medication for 4 weeks at the rime o f investigation. This finding remained highly significant even when on ly high affinity binding studies (K-d < 1 nmol/L) were considered, alt hough the absolute size of this decrease was smaller.