Effectiveness Study of Scopolamine Combined With Escitalopram in Patients With MDD

Summary

Despite the availability of a wide range of antidepressant drugs, clinical trials indicate that 30% to 40% of patients with major depression fail to respond to first-line antidepressant treatment, despite adequate dosage, duration, and compliance. Moreover, in those patients who do experience symptomatic relief following conventional anti-depressant treatment, clinical improvement is not evident for 3-4 weeks. Thus, there is a clear need to develop novel and improved therapeutics for unipolar depression. A previous study showed that the intravenous administration of scopolamine produces antidepressant effects. This study is designed to determine if scopolamine combine with Escitalopram produce antidepressant effects at an early stage.

Timeline

Start

2017-03-15

Primary completion

2018-02-08

Completion

2018-03-08

Publications

• Results Furey ML, Drevets WC. Antidepressant efficacy of the antimuscarinic drug scopolamine: a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2006 Oct;63(10):1121-9. doi: 10.1001/archpsyc.63.10.1121.
• Zhou J, Yang J, Zhu X, Zghoul T, Feng L, Chen R, Wang G. The effects of intramuscular administration of scopolamine augmentation in moderate to severe major depressive disorder: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Ther Adv Psychopharmacol. 2020 Jul 1;10:2045125320938556. doi: 10.1177/2045125320938556. eCollection 2020.
• Zhou J, Wang W, Yang J, Zhu X, Feng L, Xiao L, Wang G. Scopolamine augmentation of a newly initiated escitalopram treatment for major depressive disorder: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2019 Jan 9;20(1):33. doi: 10.1186/s13063-018-3132-3.

Drugs

Indications