Drug-induced Depression: a Case/Non Case Study in the French Pharmacovigilance Database

Depression is a complex disorder with heterogeneous clinical anomalies whose neurobiological understanding still remains unclear. Medications have been implicated as potential causes of depression but for many of them, data are controversial. The present study aims to investigate association bet ween drugs and reports of depression. We used the case/non case method in the French pharmacovigilance database (FPVD) to identify drugs associated with depression. Cases were reports of depression in the FPVD between January 2007 and December 2011. Non cases were all other reports during the same period. Data were expressed as reporting odds ratio (ROR) with their 95% confidence interval. Of the 114,692 reports recorded in the FPVD during the studied period, we identified 474 cases of depression. For the majority of the patients, they were considered as "non serious" (56%) and evolution was favorable (64%). Significant RORs were found for antiepileptics (topiramate, levetiracetam), anti-infective and especially anti-retroviral drugs (efavirenz, emtricitabine, tenofovir, etravirine, raltegravir), interferons and other agents including isotretinoin, methylphenidate, sodium oxybate, varenicline, montelukast, flunarizine, adalimumab, anastrozole. Taking into account the limits of the methodology, the present study described associations with mainly expected drugs belonging to various therapeutic classes but it also found a signal with some anti-retrovirals. On the contrary, we did not find some assumed associations like cardiovascular medications, antimalarial. For most of the drugs, one or more mechanisms were found to explain these depressogenic effects on the basis of animal and human literature. Even if such associations need to be confirmed by further prospective studies, cautions are necessary for many drugs to early detect depressive symptoms.