RESUMEN
Treatment-emergent sexual dysfunction (TESD) is one of the most frequent and persistent adverse effects of antidepressant medication. Sexual dysfunction (SD) secondary to SSRIs occurs in >60% of sexually active patients and >80% of healthy volunteers, with this causing treatment discontinuation in >35% of patients. However, this factor is rarely addressed in routine examinations, and only 15-30% of these events are spontaneously reported. A strategy of switching to a different non-serotonergic antidepressant could involve a risk of relapse or clinical worsening due to a lack of serotonergic activity. Vortioxetine appears to have less impact on sexual function due to its multimodal mechanism of action. No studies have been published on the effectiveness of switching to vortioxetine in patients with poorly tolerated long-term antidepressant-related SD in naturalistic settings. STUDY OBJECTIVES: To determine the effectiveness of switching to vortioxetine due to SD in a routine clinical practice setting. METHODOLOGY: observational pragmatic and naturalistic study to determine the effectiveness of the switch to vortioxetine (mean dosage 13.11 ± 4.03) in 74 patients aged 43.1 ± 12.65 (54% males) at risk of discontinuing treatment due to sexual dysfunction. The PRSexDQ*- SALSEX scale (* Psychotropic-Related Sexual Dysfunction Questionnaire) was applied at two moments: baseline visit and after 3 months of follow-up. RESULTS: global Sexual Dysfunction (SD) measured with the SALSEX scale decreased significantly between the baseline visit (10.32; SD 2.73) and the follow-up visit (3.78; SD 3.68), p < 0.001. There was a significant improvement (p < 0.001) at the endpoint including decreased libido, delay of orgasm, anorgasmia and arousal difficulties in both sexes. After switching to vortioxetine, 83.81% of patients experienced an improvement in sexual function (43.2% felt greatly improved). Most patients (83.3%) who switched to vortioxetine continued treatment after the follow-up visit. A total of 58.1% of patients showed an improvement in depressive symptoms from the baseline visit. CONCLUSION: switching to vortioxetine is an effective and reliable strategy to treat patients with poorly tolerated previous antidepressant-related sexual dysfunction in real-life clinical settings.
RESUMEN
One of the main concerns in psychiatric care is safety related to drug management. Pharmacogenetics provides an important tool to assess causes that may have contributed the adverse events during psychiatric therapy. This study illustrates the potential of pharmacogenetics to identify those patients for which pharmacogenetic-guided therapy could be appropriate. It aimed to investigate CYP2D6 genotype in our psychiatric population to assess the value of introducing pharmacogenetics as a primary improvement for predicting side effects.A broad series of 224 psychiatric patients comprising psychotic disorders, depressive disturbances, bipolar disorders, and anxiety disorders was included. The patients were genotyped with the AmpliChip CYP450 Test to analyzing 33 allelic variants of the CYP2D6 gene.All bipolar patients with poor metabolizer status showed maniac switching when CYP2D6 substrates such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors were prescribed. No specific patterns were identified for adverse events for other disorders.We propose to utilize pharmacogenetic testing as an intervention to aid in the identification of patients who are at risk of developing affective switching in bipolar disorder treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, CYP2D6 substrates, and inhibitors.
