title: Time to response for duloxetine 60 mg once daily versus placebo in elderly patients with major depressive disorder.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Rapid response to antidepressant therapy is desirable and may be particularly critical in elderly patients with major depressive disorder (MDD).
  
  
  METHODS
  Findings are based on post-hoc analyses from a double-blind trial of elderly patients with MDD > or = 65 years, randomly assigned 2:1 to duloxetine 60 mg QD (N = 207) or placebo (N = 104) for 8 weeks. Depression and pain measures included the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), 17-item Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD17), CGI-Severity, and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) for overall pain. The time to response and remission for duloxetine compared with placebo was evaluated using Cox proportional hazards (PH) modeling, Kaplan-Meier estimation, and categorical repeated measures analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Significant improvements of estimated HAMD17 response and remission rates for duloxetine started at week 2 (P = 0.022 and P = 0.033, respectively). Time to HAMD17 response and remission were significantly shorter for duloxetine versus placebo (P 0.10 for all PH treatment-by-age interactions). The placebo-referenced duloxetine HR for time to 50% reduction in overall pain was 1.75 (P = 0.024) for patients with moderate to severe pain.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Duloxetine demonstrated a faster time to antidepressant response and improvement in self-reported pain as compared with placebo. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRY NUMBER FOR THIS STUDY: NCT00062673, at www.clinicaltrials.gov.
authors.affiliation: Lilly Research Laboratories, Eli Lilly Canada, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. raskin_joel@lilly.com
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Raskin
authors.forename: Jimmy Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Daniel K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Kajdasz
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000928:Antidepressive Agents / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy*; D004334:Drug Administration Schedule; D000068736:Duloxetine Hydrochloride; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013876:Thiophenes / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D000928:Antidepressive Agents; D013876:Thiophenes; D000068736:Duloxetine Hydrochloride