Comparative Efficacy and Acceptability of 21 Antidepressant Drugs for the Acute Treatment of Adults With Major Depressive Disorder: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis

Psychiatric disorders account for 22.8% of the global burden of diseases.¹ The leading cause of this disability is depression, which has substantially increased since 1990, largely driven by population growth and ageing.² With an estimated 350 million people affected globally, the economic burden of depressive disorders in the USA alone has been estimated to be more than US$210 billion, with approximately 45% attributable to direct costs, 5% to suicide-related costs, and 50% to workplace costs.³ This trend poses a substantial challenge for health systems in both developed and developing countries, with the need to treat patients, optimise resources, and improve overall health care in mental health.

Grouped into various classes of drugs with slightly different mechanisms of action, antidepressants are widely used treatments for major depressive disorder, which are available worldwide. However, there is a long lasting debate and concern about their efficacy and effectiveness, because short-term benefits are, on average, modest; and because long-term balance of benefits and harms is often understudied.⁴ Therefore, innovation in psychopharmacology is of crucial importance, but the identification of new molecular targets is difficult, primarily because of the paucity of knowledge about how antidepressants work.⁵ In routine practice, clinicians have a wide choice of individual drugs and they need good evidence to make the best choice for each individual patient. Network meta-analyses of existing datasets make it possible to estimate comparative efficacy, summarise and interpret the wider picture of the evidence base, and to understand the relative merits of the multiple interventions.⁶ Therefore, in this study, we aimed to do a systematic review and network meta-analysis to inform clinical practice by comparing different antidepressants for the acute treatment of adults with unipolar major depressive disorder.

28 552 citations were identified by the search and 680 potentially eligible articles were retrieved in full text (figure 1). We included 421 trials from the database search, 86 unpublished studies from trial registries and pharmaceutical company websites, and 15 from personal communication or hand-searching other review articles. Overall, 522 double-blind, parallel, RCTs (comprising 116 477 patients) done between 1979 and 2016, and comparing 21 antidepressants or placebo were included in the analysis (appendix pp 6–64). The appendix (pp 65–114) summarises the characteristics of included studies. The mean study sample size was 224 participants (SD 186). In total, 87 052 participants were randomly assigned to an active drug and 29 425 were randomly assigned to placebo. The mean age was 44 years (SD 9) for both men and women; 38 404 (62.3%) of 61 681 of the sample population were women. The median duration of the acute treatment was 8 weeks (IQR 6–8). 243 (47%) of 522 studies randomly assigned participants to three or more groups, and 304 (58%) of 522 were placebo-controlled trials. 391 (83%) of 472 were multi-centre studies and 335 (77%) of 437 studies recruited outpatients only. 252 (48%) of 522 trials recruited patients from North America, 37 (7%) from Asia, and 140 (27%) from Europe (59 [11%] trials were cross-continental and the remaining 34 [7%] were either from other regions or did not specify). The great majority of patients had moderate-to-severe major depressive disorder, with a mean reported baseline severity score on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale 17-item of 25.7 (SD 3.97) among 464 (89%) of 522 studies. Response rate was imputed in 20 608 (17.7%) of 116 447 cases. Rescue medications (typically benzodiazepines or other sedative hypnotics) were allowed in 187 (36%) of 522 studies. 409 (78%) of 522 studies were funded by pharmaceutical companies. We retrieved unpublished information for 274 (52%) of the included trials. Consistent with the study protocol, the primary analysis was based on the 474 studies (comprising 106 966 patients) that used drugs within the licensed dose range (ie, the dosage approved by the regulatory agencies in the USA and Europe; appendix pp 133, 134).

Figure 2 shows the network of eligible comparisons for efficacy and acceptability. All antidepressant drugs, except milnacipran, had at least one placebo-controlled trial. Only levomilnacipran was not directly compared with at least another active drug in any of the networks. The appendix (pp 139–44) provides detailed results of pairwise meta-analyses. Figure 3 shows the network meta-analysis’ results for the primary outcomes. In terms of efficacy (432 RCTs, comprising 102 443 patients), all antidepressants were more effective than placebo, with ORs ranging between 2.13 (95% credible interval [CrI] 1.89–2.41) for amitriptyline and 1.37 (1.16–1.63) for reboxetine. In terms of acceptability (422 RCTs, comprising 99 787 patients), agomelatine (OR 0.84, 95% CrI 0.72–0.97) and fluoxetine (0.88, 0.80–0.96) were associated with fewer dropouts than placebo; by contrast, clomipramine was worse than placebo (1.30, 1.01–1.68).

The relative efficacy of antidepressants compared with placebo is also shown for remission (appendix pp 152, 153). The random-effects summary SMD for all antidepressants was 0.30 (95% CrI 0.26–0.34; p<0.0001; appendix pp 150, 151). In terms of dropouts due to adverse events, all active drugs were associated with higher withdrawal rates than placebo with ORs ranging between 1.64 and 4.44, and 95% CrI excluding the null, except agomelatine (OR 1.21, 95% CrI 0.94–1.56; appendix pp 154–55). For the full results of the secondary outcomes see the appendix (pp 150–55).

In the analysis of response rate, 8% of the loops were inconsistent (17 of 219 loops; p value of the design by treatment test was 0.063), and also 8% of the loops were inconsistent for dropouts (16 of 210 loops; p=0.219). The median heterogeneity variances were estimated at 0.044 (95% CrI 0.028–0.063) for response and 0.040 (0.023–0.062) for dropout, suggesting moderateto-low heterogeneity. Subgroup meta-regression analyses revealed that the use of placebo in trials was the strongest explanation of heterogeneity and inconsistency in those evaluated. Exclusion of placebo-controlled trials resulted in a 24% relative reduction in heterogeneity variance for response and 45% for dropout. Additionally, we found that smaller and older studies presented larger effects of the active interventions versus placebo (in particular for amitriptyline, bupropion, fluoxetine, and reboxetine; appendix pp 182–96). The year of randomisation or study precision did not materially impact on the relative treatment effects between active interventions (appendix p 228). Overall, 46 (9%) of 522 trials were rated as high risk of bias, 380 (73%) trials as moderate, and 96 (18%) as low (appendix pp 115–32).

We also synthesised head-to-head studies separately to assess the differences between drugs. Figure 4 presents these data for the primary outcomes (194 studies with at least two active groups at licensed dose and comprised 34 196 patients). Agomelatine, amitriptyline, escitalopram, mirtazapine, paroxetine, venlafaxine, and vortioxetine were more effective than other antidepressants (ORs ranging between 1.19 and 1.96), whereas fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, reboxetine, and trazodone were among the least efficacious drugs (ORs ranging between 0.51 and 0.84). In terms of acceptability, agomelatine, citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, sertraline, and vortioxetine were more tolerable than other antidepressants (ORs ranging between 0.43 and 0.77), whereas amitriptyline, clomipramine, duloxetine, fluvoxamine, reboxetine, trazodone, and venlafaxine were the antidepressants associated with the highest dropout rates (ORs ranging between 1.30 and 2.32). When all trials were considered, differences in ORs between antidepressants ranged from 1.15 to 1.55 for efficacy (appendix p 147) and from 0.64 to 0.83 for acceptability (appendix p 149), with wide CrIs on most of the comparative analyses. Figure 5 reports the two-dimensional graphs about efficacy and acceptability in all studies and head-to-head studies. Results for the secondary outcomes were in line with the findings for the primary outcomes (appendix pp 197–230). Within the head-to-head comparisons, when a treatment was the novel or experimental drug of comparison, it appeared to be significantly more effective than when that same treatment was the older or control drug of comparison (difference 1.18-times, 95% CrI 1.09–1.27). Adjusting for this novelty effect diminished the differences between antidepressants.

We incorporated the GRADE judgments in figure 4. The certainty of evidence for the relative treatment effects of efficacy and acceptability varied; it was moderate for most of the comparisons involving agomelatine, escitalopram, citalopram, and mirtazapine, and low to very low for most comparisons involving vortioxetine, nefazadone, clomipramine, bupropion, and amitriptyline (appendix pp 231–65). The appendix (pp 266–85) presents the ranking of treatments based on cumulative probability plots and SUCRAs.

In accordance with the review protocol, we also did a sensitivity analysis, including all the studies that used the drugs within the accepted doses (ie, doses recommended in some international clinical guidelines; appendix pp 133, 134) and the results did not change substantially (appendix p 187).

This study is based on 522 double-blind studies, which included 116 477 patients randomly assigned to 21 individual first-generation and second-generation antidepressant drugs or placebo. The project extends our previous work that had addressed 12 antidepressants with data for head-to-head comparisons.⁹ The present analysis is substantially more comprehensive because it includes 21 active treatments and placebo. The much larger evidence base (about 117 000 vs 26 000 patients), obtained through exhaustive search for published and unpublished information, allowed us to investigate additional important outcomes, such as remission, change in mood symptoms and dropouts due to side-effects, and a number of methodological issues, such as sponsorship, dosing schedule, study precision, and novelty effect.¹⁶

We found that all antidepressants included in the meta-analysis were more efficacious than placebo in adults with major depressive disorder and the summary effect sizes were mostly modest. Some antidepressants, such as escitalopram, mirtazapine, paroxetine, agomelatine, and sertraline had a relatively higher response and lower dropout rate than the other antidepressants. By contrast, reboxetine, trazodone, and fluvoxamine were associated with generally inferior efficacy and acceptability profiles compared with the other antidepressants, making them less favourable options. To make our results as relevant and robust as possible to inform clinical practice, we decided to focus on head-to-head studies and at the same time emphasise the certainty of the retrieved evidence. Our assessment overall found few differences between antidepressants when all data were considered, while there was more diversity in the range of efficacy and dropout patterns seen across the head-to-head comparisons than the meta-analysis of antidepressants versus placebo.

The present findings in adults contrast with the efficacy of antidepressants in children and adolescents, for which fluoxetine is probably the only antidepressant that might reduce depressive symptoms.²¹ This differential efficacy across age groups might reflect heterogeneous mechanisms and causes of depression,²² smaller number of studies in young people, or different methodological issues affecting adult and paediatric trials.²³ The effect sizes were also smaller in more recent and larger placebo-controlled trials than in older and smaller ones, which might be an indicator of bias.

Estimated differences between drugs were smaller in placebo-controlled trials than in head-to-head studies. There are several potential explanations, as many factors have been associated with higher placebo response rates, such as randomisation ratio and the expectation of receiving an active treatment, the therapeutic setting, or the frequency of study visits.²⁴ In our dataset, we found that response to the same antidepressant was on average smaller and dropouts more likely to occur in placebo controlled trials than in head-to-head studies. Moreover, for the same drug and the same probability of receiving placebo, larger all-cause dropout rates were associated with a lower response to treatment. The use of the last observation carried forward (LOCF) approach for imputing missing outcome data might have affected the estimates of treatment effect.²⁵ Depressive symptoms tend to spontaneously improve over time and this phenomenon contributes to the high percentage of placebo responders in antidepressant trials.²⁶ Patients randomly assigned to the active drug in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial might leave studies earlier than in head-to-head studies because they might suspect they have been allocated to the placebo group than to the intervention group. Antidepressants usually take full effect only after weeks of treatment; therefore, participants who dropped out earlier tend to have poorer responses than those who remain on treatment, which are carried forward to the end of the trial by the LOCF analysis. The final result can be an underestimate of the true efficacy of the active drug.

Another possible explanation could be a bias in conduct, analysis, or reporting of head-to-head trials, driven by commercial interests.²⁷ In our analyses, funding by industry was not associated with substantial differences in terms of response or dropout rates. However, non-industry funded trials were few and many trials did not report or disclose any funding. We also observed that drugs tended to show a better efficacy profile when they were novel and used as experimental treatments than when they had become old. This novelty effect might arise where a novel agent is perceived to be more effective and better tolerated; alternatively, selective analyses and outcome reporting bias might be more prominent when a treatment is first launched.¹⁶

Our literature search was as comprehensive as possible, including the largest amount of unpublished data to date, which are associated with less favourable effect sizes for antidepressants.²⁸ Although it is possible that a certain amount of unpublished data could not be retrieved, our comparison-adjusted funnel plots did not suggest that small studies gave different results from larger studies either among placebo-controlled trials or head-to-head comparison trials (appendix pp 179–81, 225–27). The estimates of treatment effect from our study are in line with previous reviews on the same matter,²⁸ but they are considerably more precise because of our larger quantity of data and resulting statistical power.

Our review has some limitations. According to the GRADE framework, the quality of many comparisons was assessed as low or very low for amitriptyline, bupropion, and venlafaxine, whereas it was often rated as moderate for agomelatine, escitalopram, and mirtazapine. We incorporated the certainty of evidence in the main results of our analysis to highlight the most robust findings for further use in clinical judgment. However, many trials did not report adequate information about randomisation and allocation concealment, which restricts the interpretation of these results. To increase the methodological rigour of the contributing evidence, we included only double-blind trials, which were generally very similar in design and conduct. The poor information in terms of risk of bias assessment might be a matter of reporting; however, we presented full details about the risk of bias of all included studies in the appendix (pp 115–32). We did not do a formal cost-effectiveness analysis. All of the most effective antidepressants are now off patent and available in generic form. Some of the antidepressants are included in the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, which makes them available worldwide and ready to use also in developing countries.

We analysed only average treatment effects and were not able to investigate potentially important clinical and demographical modifiers of treatment response at the individual patient level (eg, age, sex, severity of symptoms, or duration of illness). Patients recruited in randomised trials tend to be highly selected and we also excluded patients with psychotic or treatment-resistant depression, which might limit the applicability of the results to these clinical subgroups, but it was intended as a methodological strength to assure transitivity in the network. We did not cover important clinical issues that might inform treatment decision making in routine clinical practice (eg, specific adverse events, withdrawal symptoms, or combination with non-pharmacological treatments). Additionally, because of the paucity of information reported in the original studies, we were not able to quantify some outcomes, such as global functioning. It should also be noted that some of the adverse effects of antidepressants occur over a prolonged period, meaning that positive results need to be taken with great caution, because the trials in this network meta-analysis were of short duration. The current report summarises evidence of differences between antidepressants when prescribed as an initial treatment. Given the modest effect sizes, non-response to antidepressants will occur. Our information unfortunately cannot guide next-step choices after failure of such a first step (ie, they do not apply to treatment-resistant depression), for which well performed trials are scarce.²⁹

Using the data made available on the websites of the US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency, on the international trial registries, and from contacting study authors and pharmaceutical companies, we managed to incorporate in the analysis a considerable amount of unpublished data for some drugs—namely, agomelatine, escitalopram, paroxetine, reboxetine, sertraline, venlafaxine, vilazodone, and vortioxetine—but not for all the antidepressants included in the network meta-analysis. This limitation in the primary trials might affect the validity of the findings for some antidepressants, but the incorporation of both direct and indirect comparisons might have contributed to reduce the potential risk of bias.³⁰ We did our best to retrieve all unpublished data and contacted study authors for supplemental material, but we are aware that a substantial amount of information is still not available to the public. There are online archives where trials are prospectively registered; however, they collect reliable information only about the most recent studies and we cannot rule out the possibility that some studies are absent or the same study has been counted twice in our analyses. It is not uncommon for the same study to go by different names in different publications, which complicates the process of data synthesis.³¹ By making the dataset fully and freely available, we welcome any information that might help clarify any mistakes in our dataset.

Notwithstanding these limitations, the findings from this network meta-analysis represent the most comprehensive currently available evidence base to guide the initial choice about pharmacological treatment for acute major depressive disorder in adults. All statements comparing the merits of one antidepressant with another must be tempered by the potential limitations of the methodology,³² the complexity of specific patient populations, and the uncertainties that might result from choice of dose or treatment setting. We hope that these results will assist in shared decision making between patients, carers, and their clinicians.