A new study, led by David Kessler, a Reader in Primary Care at the Bristol Medical School, investigates the effectiveness of combining mirtazapine with an existing antidepressant drug if taking the antidepressant by itself did not resolve the depression. Results of the study, published in the BMJ, suggest no clinically significant improvement in depressive symptoms when mirtazapine is combined with an existing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or serotonin-noradrenaline reuptake inhibitor (SNRI). The authors write:
âThe lack of clear evidence of benefit in our study, combined with the increased burden of adverse effects in the mirtazapine group, means that we cannot recommend this combination as a routine strategy in primary care for those who remain depressed after adequate treatment with SSRI or SNRI antidepressants.â
Depression is commonly managed by primary care providers, and antidepressants are usually a first line of treatment. In the UK, antidepressant prescriptions rose by 6.8% from 2014 to 2015. However, according to the STAR*D study, half of individuals treated with antidepressants do not experience at least a 50% reduction in their depressive symptoms.
âA substantial proportion of those who take antidepressants in an adequate dose and for an adequate period do not experience a clinically meaningful improvement in depressive symptoms,â summarize the authors.
And yet, there is limited evidence for prescribers on how to proceed when a patient continues to have depressive symptoms six or more weeks after starting an SSRI or SNRI. One strategy is combining an SSRI or SNRI with another antidepressant, like mirtazapine. It has been proposed that mirtazapine has pharmacological properties (it is a noradrenaline and serotonin agonist) that could complement the effects of an SSRI or SNRI. However, the evidence on whether it is clinically effective to combine mirtazapine with an SSRI or SNRI is limited and mixed.
In the MIR Study, the researchers sought to determine âthe effectiveness of adding mirtazapine to an SSRI or SNRI in reducing depressive symptoms and improving quality of life at 12 weeks (primary follow-up) and at 24 and 52 weeks compared with adding placebo for patients in primary care who still experience depression after an adequate course of treatment.â
The researchers recruited participants from four general practice sites in the UK. The study included 480 adult participants who had taken an SSRI or SNRI for at least 6 weeks who continued to meet ICD-10 criteria for depression and had a score of 14 or more on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). Participants were randomized to either take mirtazapine or placebo, in addition to their regular SSRI or SNRI. Researchers and participants were blinded to participant treatment group for the first 12 weeks. After that time, participants could request to be unblinded. The researchers involved patient and service user groups in the design, analysis, and dissemination of the study.
At 12 weeks, the BDI-II scores between groups differed by 1.7 (mirtazapine group mean = 18.0, placebo group mean = 19.7), falling short of the 3-4 point difference the researchers understood to be clinically meaningful. This difference was also not statistically significant (p = .09). The authors did note there was evidence that participants randomized to the mirtazapine group may have experienced more severe depression, based on having higher rates of a history of depression and history of suicidal thoughts. However, analyses that adjusted for these differences at baseline still did not show a statistically significant difference in BDI-II scores at 12 weeks.
At 24 and 52 weeks, group differences in BDI-II scores were smaller than at 12 weeks and were not statistically significant. The authors write that this shows âno evidence of benefit over the longer term.â The only statistically significant differences were on 2 secondary outcome measures: difference scores on the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) assessment (mean = -0.98, 95% CI = -1.93 to -0.03) and the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) to measure social and physical functioning (mean = 3.91, 95% CI = 1.63 to 6.20). However, these differences may not be clinically meaningful.
Results also suggest a worse adverse effect profile for the combination of mirtazapine and an SSRI or SNRI, compared to SSRI or SNRI monotherapy. Forty six participants who reported adverse effects in the mirtazapine group stopped taking the drug, compared to nine participants who were taking the placebo.
Primary care providers are seeking solutions for patients labeled as having âtreatment resistant depressionâ (i.e., depressive symptoms are not significantly improved by antidepressant medication). However, current evidence does not clearly support the practice of combining antidepressants.
The authors conclude:
âThis study did not find convincing evidence of a clinically important benefit for mirtazapine over placebo when given in addition to an SSRI or SNRI antidepressant for patients who had remained depressed after at least six weeks of antidepressant treatment, recruited from primary care.â
****
Kessler, D. S., MacNeill, S. J., Tallon, D., Lewis, G., Peters, T. J., Hollingworth, W., … & Wiles, N. J. (2018). Mirtazapine added to SSRIs or SNRIs for treatment resistant depression in primary care: Phase III randomised placebo controlled trial (MIR). BMJ, 363, k4218. doi: 10.1136/bmj.k4218 (Link)
I can’t see an answer to Depression and Anxiety through drugs. I know myself that there are non drug solutions. I think they have to be worked at.
Report comment
MIA acts as a tool of mainstream psychiatry by participating in the âwhich drug is better?â game.
Theyâre all toxins that do great harm, short and long term. There is no amount of pharmaceutical tweaking that will change a personâs environment: what they grew up with, what toxic overload their bodies may already be burdened with, what their current circumstantial stressors are, their socioeconomic status, and the stresses we all deal with in this increasingly Hunger Games style society we live in.
Itâs truly a shame to see MIA participating in the game of Spin the (Psychoactive) Bottle (of Pills). Critical Psychiatry means complicit in doing harm. No reason to mince words anymore.
Report comment
Hunger Games is very appropriate!
Report comment
I read the article as showing that once again, psych drugs are ineffective: The traditional antidepressant drugs aren’t effective in many people, and adding a different class (Mirtazapine) doesn’t help either.
Report comment
Psychiatrist’s add a second antidepressant all the time when one isn’t working so I’m pleased MIA publishes articles like this as they give me ammunition when questioning a psychiatrist’s reasoning.
Report comment
I guess I see this more as a way to demonstrate that, once again, the psychiatric profession is lying and prescribing something else that doesn’t work.
Report comment
You sound depressed Steve. Here. Snort some horse tranquilizers.
Lol. đ
Report comment
They must be lying to themselves, thinking this is a solution to depression, a group of signs and symptoms rather than an actual disease. Though it does give experimenters a chance to make failure pay off.
Report comment
Failure that makes you enough money is reframed as “success!”
Report comment
The recovery rate doesn’t improve, but I bet there are more interesting and exciting side effects.
Report comment
Side effects include spontaneous combustion of the head, stomach acid eating its way through internal organs, and behaviors associated with rabies. Should any of these occur, contact your doctor immediately. Especially the first.
Report comment
“If death should ensue, contact your doctor immediately, as this may be the sign of a rare but serious side effect.”
Report comment
I was prescribed Mirtazapine years ago and its therapeutic effects were so minimal and its side effects so disconcerting that I quickly went off it (also unpleasant). Brain zaps, extreme agitation, nightmares, Tourette’s like symptoms, auditory and visual disturbances, inability to think straight…you name it. No one could pay me to take that (or any psych drug) again. It goes by the brand name Remeron and is a tetracyclic antidepressant.
Report comment
i remember reading an antipsychiatry website once…about how patient abc’s ‘depression’ resolved after receiving a large inheritance…
concur. anti-poverty programs, anti-hunger programs, something…anything…to curb the police state and mass incarceration…affordable housing…
these are but a few powerful “antidepressants” that could help the 99%+/-…
or I suppose we could just shut up and take our (un)happy pills.
Report comment
The Bonker’s Institute? Great site. đ
Also loneliness.
It’s worth noting psychiatric “help” leads to poverty, poor health, and segregation. It forces you out of the workforce and estranges you from your nearest and dearest. And doubles your aging speed. I don’t look it, but healthwise I have the body of a 75 year old. I’m 45 and took at least one psych drug for over 25 years.
Report comment
Were the volunteers advised that SSRIs, SNRIs and Mirtazpine all cause AKATHISIA?
Cause profound Changes in feelings, personality, – induce emotional blunting and aggression?
That “atypical” and other antidepressants may cause memory loss?
Cause changes in behaviour likely to be misdiagnosed as “Serious Mental Illness” (With Label-For-Life as “Lebens Unwertesleben”)?
Were they advised that whilst SSRIs are marketed for depression, they are promoted elsewhere for voluntary chemical castration in selected sex offenders?
Were families warned (as in USA packet insert) – that their families and care-givers should monitor every day for agitation, akathisia, aka risk of neurotoxicity induced suicidality and “suicide”: – ie death-by-self due to acute, overwhelming neurotoxicity?
Were they advised that combined serotonergic “medication” may increase the risk of AKATHISIA and SEROTONIN SYNDROME?
Were the “subjects” warned of and monitored for ALL known, acute, sub-acute, chronic and legacy ADRs to these drugs.
Would people really give these drugs to their children if they had seen and observed the induction of these devastating toxicities, and witnessed the tragedy of subsequent misdiagnosis?
Was this study ethical?
Report comment