Exploring vortioxetine combination with intranasal esketamine: A feasible alternative to SSRI/SNRI? - Insights from the REAL-ESK study.
Journal of affective disorders December 15, 2024 Giacomo d'Andrea, Andrea Miuli, Mauro Pettorruso et al. 6 citations
In patients with treatment-resistant depression, combining vortioxetine with esketamine nasal spray reduces depressive symptoms as effectively as the standard combination of an SSRI or SNRI with esketamine. The vortioxetine combination also showed a larger reduction in emotional blunting after three months and had fewer treatment-emergent side effects. These findings come from a post-hoc analysis of twenty patients, ten in each group. The authors suggest the vortioxetine-plus-esketamine regimen may be a valuable alternative, but they call for larger randomized controlled trials to confirm the results.