ReviewPharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland)2020
Pharmacological Treatments for Patients with Treatment-Resistant Depression.
Review in Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 72 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
72 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 138 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of acupuncture on brain function in patients with depression: A meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies.Medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Effects of dance movement therapy and other dance-related interventions on depressive symptoms: a meta-analysis of evidence in the past decade.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- The effect of mindfulness meditation on depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Scientific reports · 2024Pooled it
- Efficacy and Safety of Ketamine vs Electroconvulsive Therapy Among Patients With Major Depressive Episode: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.JAMA psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Efficacy and Tolerability of Combination Treatments for Major Depression: Antidepressants plus Second-Generation Antipsychotics vs. Esketamine vs. Lithium.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2021Pooled it
- Adjunctive Bright Light Therapy for Non-Seasonal Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Trial
- Patients With Atypical Symptoms of Depression Respond Better to Lithium Augmentation Than Patients Without Atypical Symptoms.Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica · 2026Observational
- Lamotrigine is not associated with differential clinical outcomes in a real-world sample of patients with unipolar depression receiving ketamine or esketamine.Psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Transcription factors Lef1 and Rest stimulate recovery from depressive states.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Advancing treatment paradigms: the role of psilocybin in managing major depressive disorder.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2026Review
- A critical appraisal of integrating family constellation therapy with pharmacological treatment for depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- Differentiating Between Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- DeepDiff-SHAP: Interpretable deep learning for subgroup-specific causal hypothesis generation using conditional SHAP.Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing · 2026Article
- From Monoamines to Systems Psychiatry: Rewiring Depression Science and Care (1960s-2025).Biomedicines · 2025Article
- Article
- Lithium Augmentation in Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Qualitative Review of the Literature.Pharmacotherapy · 2025Review
- SRT1720 ameliorates LPS-induced depressive-like behaviors in mice and activates Parkin-mediated mitophagy.BMC neuroscience · 2025Article
- Chronic, combinatorial targeting of NMDARs and 5-HTNeuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Multilevel brain functional connectivity and task-based representations explaining heterogeneity in major depressive disorder.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
12 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over a third of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) do not have an adequate response to first-line antidepressant treatments, i.e., they have treatment-resistant depression (TRD). These patients tend to have a more severe course of illness and are at an increased risk of suicide. Next step treatment options for patients with TRD, include switching to a different antidepressant, combining more than one antidepressant, or augmenting an antidepressant with another (non-antidepressant) medication. It is unclear which of these treatment approaches should be applied to a given patient, and in what order. Due to this ambiguity, comparing antidepressants and augmentation agents on the basis of their efficacy, tolerability, and speed of symptom relief would be beneficial for clinicians. To accomplish this, a systematic search was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. Only randomized controlled trials were included in this qualitative synthesis, resulting in 66 articles. This review identified several effective pharmaco-therapeutic strategies that are currently available for patients with TRD. Ketamine and esketamine appear to be effective for the treatment of TRD. Augmentation with certain second generation antipsychotics, such as quetiapine or aripiprazole is likewise effective, and may be preferred over switching to antidepressant monotherapy. While the combination of olanzapine and fluoxetine was one of the first pharmacotherapy approved for TRD, and its use may be limited by metabolic side-effects. Other effective strategies include augmentation with lithium, liothyronine (T3), lamotrigine, or combination of antidepressants including bupropion, tricyclics, or mirtazapine. There is insufficient research to demonstrate the efficacy of ziprasidone or levothyroxine (T4). A shared decision-making approach is recommended to guide treatment selection to address each patient's individual needs.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.