Combination of fluoxetine and nortriptyline in the treatment of obsessive compulsive disorders

الملخص EN

Objective : There is growing interest in investigation noradrenergic functions in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) because some antidepressants with strong effects of serotonin reuptake inhibition fail to relieve obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

We undertook a trial to investigate whether the combination of fluoxetine with nortiptyline is more effective than fluoxetine alone. Method : Thirty nine patients who met the DSM-IV criterias for OCD were included in the study.

Patients were allocated in a random fashion, 19 patients to fluoxetine 40mg/day plus nortriptyline 40mg/day and 20 patients to fluoxetine 40mg/day plus placebo. Results : Although both protocols significantly decreased the scores of the Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive scale over the trial period, the combination of fluoxetine and nortriptyline showed a significant superiority over fluoxetine alone in the treatment of OCD. Conclusion : As this study indicates, a rapid onset of action is one of the advantages of this combination.

This study supports further investigation of the noradrenergic-serotoninergic hypothesis in OCD