[Treatment-resistant depression. From classification to new therapies.].

Treatment-resistant depression has become a growing public health problem due to high relapse, hospitalization, and mortality rates, along with diminished quality of life. A review of literature up to May 2022 on PubMed, PsychInfo, and Cochrane Library examined advances in recognizing and treating this condition. Patients who do not respond to antidepressants require additional pharmacological and instrumental therapies. Recently, esketamine and psilocybin have drawn particular clinical interest, alongside instrumental treatments such as vagus nerve stimulation, deep brain stimulation, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, epidural cortical stimulation, and electroconvulsive therapy. Future research should establish valid criteria and provide reliable data on benefits, risks, and costs of these therapies.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the advances in recent years in the recognition and therapy of treatment-resistant depression starting from the concepts of: depressive disorder, resistance and pseudoresistance to drug treatment in depression, and appropriate treatments of treatment-resistant depression. An extensive research was carried out on scientific databases such as: PubMed, PsychInfo and Cochrane Library, until May 2022, using the keywords "major depression", "treatment-resistant depression", "staging", "instrumental therapies for resistant depression", "esketamine" and "psilocybin". Subjects who do not respond to antidepressants show a form of treatment resistance that requires an approach with additional pharmacological and/or instrumental therapies. Recently, esketamine and psilocybin are of particular interest among clinicians, and instrumental treatments such as: vagus nerve stimulation, deep brain stimulation, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, transcranial direct current stimulation, epidural cortical stimulation, and electro convulsive therapy, are being added to them. Treatment-resistant depression has increasingly become a public health problem due to the significant number of relapses, hospitalizations and mortality it entails, with increased demand for the use of more drugs, therapeutic resources by health services, and loss of quality of life for patients. Treatment-resistant depression needs to be addressed through the creation of dedicated study protocols. Future research should focus on the need to establish operational, valid and appropriate criteria, both on the psychopathological, clinical governance and therapeutic levels, focusing on the latest therapies in order to provide reliable data on the benefits, risks and costs associated with their use.