First Top 10 List for Antidepressants

Jan. 29, 2009— -- When someone swallows his or her first antidepressant, it may come as a surprise how the psychiatrist chose that particular pill to prescribe: It's a best guess out of dozens of antidepressants on the market.

Now, a few psychiatrists have set out to bring some order to this educated guessing game. By looking at 117 studies of the 12 most popular antidepressants, researchers ranked the top 12 drugs in the journal The Lancet.

To view their results, click here.

Zoloft and Lexapro came in first for a combination of effectiveness and fewer side effects, followed by Prozac (fluoxetine), Paxil (paroxetine), Cymbalta, and Luvox among others.

"We were surprised because we found a difference among antidepressants," said Dr. Andrea Cipriani of the University of Verona, Italy, and a co-author on the study.

"What we usually said was that all antidepressants worked the same," said Cipriani, who explained that doctors often compare different side effects while choosing an antidepressant.

"So, is there a rationale, is there a hierarchy?" Cipriani asked.

Now, he hopes the ranking will offer more guidance for doctors choosing the first antidepressant for a patient.

Although many psychiatrists are leery of the list, patients who've gone through years of distressing trial and error might find it comforting.

"When I first was diagnosed with depression, they tried all sorts of medication," said Paul Letourneau, 67. "It was terrible."

Letourneau of Worcester, Mass., lived antidepressant-free until 2004, when his parents died, his dog died and he lost his house. Then his life-long mild depression took a serious turn. Drug after drug, Letourneau found the side effects worse than the depression itself.

His rollercoaster emotions landed Letourneau in the hospital on suicide watch four times in two years.

"I was really over-medicated and he [his current doctor] ended up taking me off a lot of the medication and we settled on the two that I take now, and I feel great," Letourneau said. "I've been stable for a year.

"When your medication starts to work and you get involved in a positive thing in life, it does help you tremendously," he said.

Cipriani said issues like Letourneau's motivated him to try and narrow down the best drugs for a patient in need of antidepressants to try the first time. Indeed, Cipriani added, the idea and the method for ranking treatments is not new in medicine.