HPA axis activation determined by the CRH challenge test in patients with few versus multiple episodes of treatment-refractory depression.

What Was Tested

This clinical trial looks at Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone.

In clinical guidelines, risk factors for a malignant illness course include 3 or more lifetime episodes of depression.

Their aim was to investigate the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal hormonal axis in treatment-refractory affective disorder in pauciepisodic (one or two episodes) versus multiepisodic (three or more episodes) patients.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 37 patients were involved.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, both men and women.

The researchers evaluated the HPA axis in 37 patients with treatment-refractory affective disorder and in 27 healthy volunteers by measuring adrenocorticotropin hormone (ACTH) and cortisol responses following administration of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH).

In retrospective life charts was recorded every previous illness episode for each patient.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Adrenocorticotropic Hormone, Analysis of Variance, Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone, Depression, Hydrocortisone, Hypothalamo-Hypophyseal System and Pituitary-Adrenal System.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a clinical trial of Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone in 37 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Its findings take up roughly 6 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2004 (European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience), a journal based in Germany.

More context: all human trials.