[The effectiveness of monoamine oxidase inhibitors in treatment-resistant depressive disorders in clinical practice; a retrospective open-label study]. / De effectiviteit van monoamineoxidase-remmers bij therapieresistente depressie in de klinische praktijk; een retrospectieve openlabelstudie.

BACKGROUND: Monoamine oxidase (mao)-inhibitors are often prescribed in patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression, but the evidence of its effectiveness in this type of depression is limited: a restricted amount of similar studies describes response-rates of 12-75%.
AIM: To get more insight in the effectiveness of mao-inhibitors in treatment-resistant depression in clinical practice.
METHOD: We investigated medical files of patients with a uni- or bipolar, treatment-resistant depression and looked at the difference in score on the Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology - Self Report (ids-sr) before and after 3 months of treatment with a mao-inhibitor. After that, we investigated how often patients achieved remission, response, partial response, no response or drop-out due to of side-effects.
RESULTS: The included 17 patients achieved a mean decrease of 8.6 (sd:15.1) points, which corresponded with a decrease of 16.8% (p = 0.032). One patient (6%) achieved remission, 2 patients (12%) achieved response, 5 patients (29%) had partial response and 7 patients (41%) did not respond at all. Three patients (18%) quitted because of side-effects.
CONCLUSION: The results of this and similar studies are modest and ask for critical thinking and critical prescribing of mao-inhibitors, because of the possibly limited effectiveness in treatment-resistant depressions.

[Lithium augmentation to monoamine oxidase-inhibitors in treatment-resistant depressive disorders: case report and overview of literature]. / Lithiumadditie bij monoamine-oxidaseremmers bij therapieresistente depressie: casusbeschrijvingen en literatuuroverzicht.

Three patients suffering from a treatment-resistant depression were being treated with a monoamine oxidase (mao-)inhibitor and received lithium augmentation to achieve better recovery. One patient showed significant improvement of depressive symptoms within 24 hours, one patient showed very little respons and one patient did not respond at all. Literature research led to other casereports, where adding lithium to mao-inhibitors had also been effective. The growing amount of arguments of a positive effect of lithium augmentation to mao-inhibitors asks for more research to collect more evidence and a better understanding of this new, potentially effective treatment.