The researchers said doctors should in future be able to direct depressed patients with a certain level of inflammation in their blood towards earlier treatment with a more potent course of anti-depressants — possibly including combining two medications — before they get worse.
"This study moves us a step closer to providing personalised anti-depressant treatment at the earliest signs of depression," said Annamaria Cattaneo, who led the work at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN).
Depression is one of the most common forms of mental illness, affecting more than 350 million people worldwide.
It is ranked by the World Health Organisation as the leading cause of disability globally.
Treatment usually involves either medication, some form of psychotherapy, or a combination of both. But around half of all people treated for depression fail to get better with first-line antidepressants, and around a third of patients are resistant to all available medications designed to help.
Until now, doctors have not been able to establish whether someone will respond to an anti-depressant, or whether they might need a more-aggressive treatment plan from the start.
As a result, patients are often treated with a trial-and-error approach, trying one drug after another for months on end and often seeing no improvement in their symptoms.
In this study, published on Tuesday in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, Cattaneo's team focused on two biomarkers that measure blood inflammation.
Previous studies have already linked raised levels of inflammation with a poor response to anti-depressants.
The researchers measured the two markers, called Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor (MIF) and interleukin (IL)-1, in two groups of patients with depression before or after they took a range of commonly prescribed anti-depressants.
They found blood readings above a certain threshold could reliably predict the probability of a patient responding. To read more click here.
The 17th International Mental Health Conference will be held at the brand new Sea World Resort Conference Centre on the Gold Coast, QLD from the 11 -12 August 2016.
You are invited to join us as we address the conference theme “Guiding the Change” across the broad spectrum of mental disorders. To register for the conference CLICK HERE.