The Use of Antidepressants in Novel Combination Therapies

Antidepressant monotherapy is used more often than other therapies to achieve symptom remissionin depressed patients; however, for patients resistant to antidepressants, other strategies are necessary.Many novel combination therapies have been proposed to treat resistant depression. The efficacyof combination therapies such as lithium augmentation of antidepressants is supported by a largeamount of evidence including data from controlled trials. Nonetheless, anecdotal reports suggest thatthese combinations are underutilized. Data from studies of the use of the combination of atypical antipsychoticsand selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors suggest that this is a particularly promisingtherapeutic avenue. However, more research is needed to corroborate these early results.