Symptom Duration Affects Teen Drug Trials

The short duration of depressive symptoms in teens may affect evaluation of drug treatment responses, according to a U.S. study.

There has been controversy in recent years regarding the correlation between teenage suicide and the use of anti-depressant drugs and at a Federal Drug Administration meeting reviewing this topic, the majority of clinical trials examined did not show that the drugs were effective in treating depression in children and adolescents.

The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, suggests that the short duration of depressive symptoms in this age group makes it difficult to distinguish drug efficacy from placebo.

The researchers advise using multiple assessments to establish a continuous baseline before randomizing patients to treatment, which would remove those who spontaneously recover in a very short period of time.

In addition to having an impact on the accuracy of future clinical trials, this approach may help decrease the number of children who are exposed to unnecessary long-term drug therapy and possible side effects, since those who spontaneously recover quickly would not be started on drug therapy.