Advancing Personalized Antidepressant Treatment Using PET/MRI
Status:
Unknown status
Trial end date:
2020-01-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Despite current medications, morbidity and mortality of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)
remain high. According to the World Health Organization, MDD affects 121 million people
worldwide, and is projected to be the second leading cause of global disability by 2020.
Monotherapy with SSRIs is the most widely used treatment for MDD. However, on average, SSRIs
require six weeks for onset of action, and two-thirds of those on SSRIs fail to achieve
remission.Compounding this problem, patients with residual symptoms are significantly more
likely to discontinue treatment or relapse, be hospitalized for medical and psychiatric
conditions, or die of suicide and other causes. Although eliminating ineffective treatment
trials would significantly reduce patient suffering and healthcare costs,clinicians currently
do not have the tools to objectively select treatment based on an individual's likelihood of
remission. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify markers predictive of an
individual's SSRI treatment outcome. Developing this personalized treatment requires
increased understanding of the relationship between pretreatment neurobiology, SSRI-induced
biological changes, and the corresponding symptom improvements.