Two trials examined olanzapine and found no difference in the primary outcome ( response to treatment ) and most other efficacy-related outcomes but it was associated with more weight gain than monotherapy with antidepressants .
There were also some beneficial effects of quetiapine in terms of anxiety or depressive symptoms .
BACKGROUND Obsessive compulsive disorder ( OCD ) is a psychiatric disorder which has been shown to affect 2 to 3.5 % of people during their lifetimes .
Inadequate response occurs in 40 % to 60 % of people that are prescribed first line pharmaceutical treatments ( selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs ) ) .
To date not much is known about the efficacy and adverse effects of second-generation antipsychotic drugs ( SGAs ) in people suffering from OCD .
OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of SGAs ( monotherapy or add on ) compared with placebo or other forms of pharmaceutical treatment for people with OCD .
Quetiapine augmentation of SRIs in treatment refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder: a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled study [ISRCTN83050762]
Background Although serotonin reuptake inhibitors are effective in the treatment of OCD , many patients fail to respond to these agents . Growing evidence from open-label and placebo-controlled trials suggests a role for augmentation of SRIs with atypical antipsychotics in OCD . Quetiapine is generally well tolerated and previous open-label data has produced mixed results in OCD and additional controlled data is needed . Methods We undertook a double-blind , r and omised , parallel-group , flexible-dose , placebo-controlled study of quetiapine augmentation in subjects who had responded inadequately to open-label treatment with an SRI for 12 weeks . Following informed consent and screening , forty-two subjects were r and omised to either placebo or quetiapine for six weeks . Results There was significant improvement from baseline to endpoint on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale in both the quetiapine and placebo groups ( quetiapine , n = 20 , p < 0.0001 ; placebo , n = 21 , p = 0.001 ) with 40 % ( n = 8) of quetiapine and 47.6 % ( n = 10 ) of placebo treated subjects being classified as responders . Quetiapine did not demonstrate a significant benefit over placebo at the end of the six-week treatment period ( p = .636 ) . Similarly quetiapine failed to separate from placebo in the subgroup of subjects ( n = 10 ) with co-morbid tics . Quetiapine was generally well tolerated . Conclusions In this study , quetiapine augmentation was no more effective than placebo augmentation of SRIs . A number of limitations in study design make comparisons with previous studies in this area difficult and probably contributed to our negative findings . Future work in this important clinical area should address these limitations
Two trials examined olanzapine and found no difference in the primary outcome ( response to treatment ) and most other efficacy-related outcomes but it was associated with more weight gain than monotherapy with antidepressants .
There were also some beneficial effects of quetiapine in terms of anxiety or depressive symptoms .
BACKGROUND Obsessive compulsive disorder ( OCD ) is a psychiatric disorder which has been shown to affect 2 to 3.5 % of people during their lifetimes .
Inadequate response occurs in 40 % to 60 % of people that are prescribed first line pharmaceutical treatments ( selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ( SSRIs ) ) .
To date not much is known about the efficacy and adverse effects of second-generation antipsychotic drugs ( SGAs ) in people suffering from OCD .
OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of SGAs ( monotherapy or add on ) compared with placebo or other forms of pharmaceutical treatment for people with OCD .