Anti-inflammatory treatments for mood disorders: Systematic review and meta-analysis

Recent studies suggest that anti-inflammatory medication may play a role in the treatment of mood disorders.

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of anti-inflammatory drugs in patients with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PubMed, EMBASE, PsychINFO and Clinicaltrials.gov were searched from inception until 15 April 2017 for completed and on-going randomized controlled trials of anti-inflammatory agents for major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. Data from randomized controlled trials assessing the antidepressant and anti-manic effect of adjunctive mechanistically diverse anti-inflammatory agents were pooled to determine standard mean differences (SMDs) compared with placebo and/or treatment as usual.

Patients receiving anti-inflammatory agents showed lower post-treatment depressive symptom scores compared with those receiving placebo with a standard mean difference of -0.71 (six randomized controlled trials, n=214, 95% CI -1.24 to -0.17, p=0.009). Anti-inflammatory treatment was found to reduce post-treatment manic symptom scores with a standard mean difference of -0.72 (three randomized controlled trials, n=96, 95% CI -1.31 to -0.13, p=0.02). Anti-inflammatories did not show a statistically significant improvement in the secondary outcome measure (change in symptom scores from baseline to outcome).

Further high quality trials are needed before making recommendations for the routine clinical use of anti-inflammatories in the treatment of mood disorders.