OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), bupropion, nortriptyline and combination therapy and describe factors associated with treatment success. INTRODUCTION Clinical trials clearly demonstrate the efficacy of pharmacotherapy in smoking cessation. However, it is only after its use in real-life settings that clinical effectiveness and limitations of a tre...

10.2217/14750708.4.2.187 © 2 Objective: Depression is a major health problem and is not only under-recognized and undertreated but is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. It has been suggested that combination therapy rapidly reduces depressive symptoms in patients with moderate-to-severe depression more effectively than monotherapy; however, this is controversial. Serotonergic ...

The relationship between plasma concentration of nortriptyline and therapeutic effect after two weeks' treatment with the drug was investigated in 29 psychiatric inpatients. Endogenous depression was diagnosed in all patients. Amelioration of depressive symptoms was estimated as reduction in score on a rating scale, based on a psychiatric interview. Amelioration was not correlated to the patien...

Most comparisons of the efficacy of antidepressants have relied on the assumption that missing data are randomly distributed. Dropout rates differ between drugs, suggesting this assumption may not hold true. This paper examines the effect of non-random dropout on a comparison of two antidepressant drugs, escitalopram and nortriptyline, in the treatment of major depressive disorder. The GENDEP s...

BACKGROUND Depression is an international public health problem. Impairment in social and occupational functioning, increased comorbidity with other psychiatric and medical conditions, and an increased risk of mortality are a few of its consequences. Some psychiatrists have the impression that selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors may not work as well as tricyclic anti-depressants in severe ...

Considerable variability has been observed in the steady-state plasma concentrations of nortriptyline in psychiatric patients undergoing treatment with the drug (Hammer, Idestrom, and Sjoqvist, 1967). Some patients have been found to have exceptionally high plasma levels forming a mode which was separated from the great majority (Sj6qvist et al, 1968). Nortriptyline (NT) steady-state plasma lev...

With the widespread use of tricyclic antidepressant drugs, the relationship between the concentration of the drug in the plasma and the therapeutic response is of considerable interest. We describe a double-isotope derivative dilution procedure for measuring plasma nortriptyline. In the method, [14C]nortriptyline is used for estimating procedural losses and [3H]acetic anhydride for derivative f...

OBJECTIVE To establish if there is a role for gabapentin or nortriptyline in the treatment of chronic orchialgia. METHODS Twenty-six consecutive patients with chronic orchialgia were seen in the chronic pain clinic by a multidisciplinary team. A pain questionnaire was completed prior to commencing either gabapentin or nortriptyline. They were reviewed at 3 months and a repeat questionnaire co...

Neuritic degeneration and synaptic loss are features of both neuroinflammation and neurodegenerative disease. The tricyclic antidepressant amitriptyline has neurotrophic and anti-inflammatory properties and acts as a novel agonist of the neurotrophin Trk receptors. Primary cortical neurons were treated with amitriptyline, nortriptyline and NGF and tested for neuronal complexity by Sholl analysi...