title: Tianeptine and paroxetine in major depressive disorder, with a special focus on the anxious component in depression: an international, 6-week double-blind study dagger.
abstract: Tianeptine (37.5 mg/day) and paroxetine (20 mg/day) were compared in a population of depressive patients without past or current history of co-morbid anxiety and/or important anxiolytic treatment. In a 6-week, double blind trial, the special focus was on anxious symptoms.Both drugs showed good efficacy on depressive symptomatology, assessed with MADRS and HDRS, but no difference was detected between tianeptine and paroxetine, for any assessment criterion. Despite the choice of selected depressive patients, without any co-morbid anxious disorder, anxiety scale scores at inclusion (HAMA and BAS) were appreciable but correlated poorly with depressive scores. Both tianeptine and paroxetine improved the apparent anxious component in depression. Tolerability of both drugs was good, although significantly better with tianeptine.Thus tianeptine and paroxetine are effective and safe treatments for major depression and may also act directly on the anxious component of the psychopathology. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
authors.affiliation: Service de Psychiatrie, Hôpital Fernand Widal, 200, rue du Faubourg St Denis, 75745 Paris Cedex 10, France.
authors.forename: Jean Pierre
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Lepine
authors.forename: Carlo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Altamura
authors.forename: Marc
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ansseau
authors.forename: Jose Luis Ayuso
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Gutierrez
authors.forename: Istvan
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Bitter
authors.forename: Malcolm
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lader
authors.forename: Lionel
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Waintraub