Dose-response relationship of recent antidepressants in the short-term treatment of depression

Antidepressant drugs are widely recommended for the treatment of depressive disorders, and finding the "right dose for the right patient" is an important issue. Whatever antidepressant is prescribed, a proportion of adult patients with major depression fail to respond satisfactorily to adequate first-line treatment. A frequent strategy for patients with insufficient response to an initial antidepressant dose is to increase the dose. This review is about this strategy, ie, the possible benefits of prescribing higher doses of recent antidepressants. The results show that a flat dose-response curve is a class phenomenon for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), according to randomized, controlled, fixed-dose clinical trials. For the serotonin and noradrenaline reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs), the strategy of dose increase may be relevant for venlafaxine, in order to increase the number of responders. Thus, the subgroup of patients for whom high doses of SSRIs could be useful remains to be defined.