Quetiapine in the Treatment of Psychotic Depression - a Pilot Study

Atypical antipsychotics have been found not only to be beneficial in the treatment of psychotic disorders, but even for depressive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. Remarkably, preliminary data suggest that the atypical antipsychotic quetiapine has antidepressive properties. Until now, there is limited knowledge concerning the efficacy of quetiapine in major depressive illness and especially in psychotic depression. In our own clinical practice, several patients with psychotic depression were successfully treated with quetiapine as add-on therapy or as monotherapy. On the background of that, the convincing effects of quetiapine in bipolar depression, single-case reports and pilot studies concerning its effectiveness in depressive mood states in psychotic disorders as well as our clinical experiences, it is to assume that a treatment with quetiapine over a 6 weeks period show similar effects in major depressive episode with psychotic features, i.e. psychotic depression. In this pilot study we plan to investigate 20 patients with psychotic features of depression under treatment with quetiapine.