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

Background: Recent studies suggest that anti-inflammatory medication may play a role in the treatment of mood disorders. Aims: The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of anti-inflammatory drugs in patients with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. Method: 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. Results: 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). Conclusions: Further high quality trials are needed before making recommendations for the routine clinical use of anti-inflammatories in the treatment of mood disorders.