Influence of the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region on the antidepressant response to fluvoxamine in Japanese depressed patients.

The presence of the long (l) variant of the serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine: 5-HT) transporter gene-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) is reported to be associated with a more favorable and faster antidepressant effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in Caucasians. The frequency of the l allele is lower in Japanese than in Caucasians; therefore, the antidepressant effect of fluvoxamine can be not as good in Japanese as in Caucasians. The authors investigated whether 5-HTTLPR was associated with the antidepressant response to fluvoxamine in 66 Japanese patients with major depressive disorder in a protocolized-dosing 6-week study. The short (s) allele frequency was significantly higher in the responsive individuals than in the nonresponsive ones (P = .010). The present study suggests that fluvoxamine is not less effective in depressive patients carrying the s allele than in the ones carrying the l allele and it is not less effective in Japanese than in Caucasians.

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Keizo Yoshida, Kenichi Ito, Kazuhiro Sato, Hitoshi Takahashi, Mitsuhiro Kamata, Hisashi Higuchi, Tetsuo Shimizu, Kunihiko Itoh, Kazuyuki Inoue, Takehiko Tezuka, Toshio Suzuki, Tadashi Ohkubo, Kazunobu Sugawara, Koichi Otani. Influence of the serotonin transporter gene-linked polymorphic region on the antidepressant response to fluvoxamine in Japanese depressed patients. Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry. 2002 Feb;26(2):383-6

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PMID: 11817517

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