Recently, the FDA approved the Amplichip CYP450 Test (from Roche Diagnostics), which is a device allowing laboratories to quickly find out whether your patient metabolizes drugs too slowly or too quickly.
The latest results from the CATIE trial indicate that treatment with Trilafon (perphenazine) is not only much cheaper than treatment with SGAs (second generation antipsychotics), but leads to superior overall quality of life for patients.
Only after thinking long and hard about it, according to the long anticipated results from the CATIE-AD trial. In this study, 421 patients with Alzheimer’s Disease were randomized to double-blind treatment with Zyprexa (mean dose, 3.2 mg/day), Seroquel (34.1 mg/day), Risperdal (0.7 mg/day), or placebo.
In the largest ever randomized controlled trial of acupuncture for depression, the treatment did no better than “non-specific” needling; in fact, it did somewhat worse.
It’s been a bad, bad year for Topamax (topiramate). First, the results of four controlled trials of Topamax as monotherapy for mania showed that it outperforms placebo in only two ways: more paresthesia and more weight loss (Kushner et al, Bipolar Disorders 2006;8:15-27).
I know that you published a famous meta-analysis several years ago in which you compared the remission rates of patients on venlafaxine with SSRIs and placebo. Can you remind us of what that study showed?