Esketamine combined with a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) was linked to significantly lower rates of several adverse outcomes than esketamine plus a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), new research showed.
Prior research has suggested that esketamine combined with either antidepressant is effective for TRD. But whether an add-on SNRI would yield better results than add-on SSRI was unclear due to a lack of head-to-head comparisons.
The retrospective cohort study of more than 55,000 participants with TRD showed that adding an SNRI to esketamine nasal spray was associated with significantly lower rates of all-cause mortality, hospitalization, and depression relapse than using add-on SSRI.
However, esketamine plus SSRI was linked to a lower incidence…