Agomelatine In The Management Of Depression

Various antidepressants are available on the market, most of them relying on a few common mechanisms of action. Since response to treatment in a large percentage of patients is not satisfying, the emergence of drugs with a novel mechanism of action, as is the case with agomelatine, invariably offers new hope. The article offers a review of the results of meta-analyses and placebo-controlled studies as well as several open-label trials concerning given aspects of therapy. The reviewed studies have all been published over the recent years, starting in 2013. The meta-analyses have yielded equivocal results, yet the newer studies seem to point to the high efficiency of agomelatine. Importantly, the validity of earlier concerns regarding the significant hepatotoxicity of agomelatine has not been confirmed. The results of placebo-controlled trials have fairly unanimously demonstrated the effectiveness and safety of agomelatine to be in no way inferior to that of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. The recent studies investigating the effect of agomelatine on anhedonia have all been open-label trials, with agomelatine not compared with other antidepressants, hence it is difficult to interpret the outcomes unequivocally.