High-dose St. John's wort extract STW 3-VI as a daily single-dose is safe and effective in the treatment of mild to moderate depression in different age-groups – results of a re-evaluation

Objectives: In a post-marketing surveillance study (1) 4188 patients of 793 general practitioners were included. The patients suffered mainly from mild to moderate depression and dysthymia according to ICD 10 and were treated with St. John's wort extract (STW 3-VI, 900mg extract) 1×1 tablet daily for 12 weeks. This revaluation assessed the change of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) scores over time to different age-groups. Methods: An analysis of variance (ANOVA) for repeated measures (SPSS 15.0) was conducted. Only patients with completed data for all measurements were revaluated. Results: 1701 patients with mild depression, 1433 patients with moderate depression and 194 patients with dysthymia were revaluated (913 male, 2415 female patients). The 3 main ICD-10 disease classes showed a significant and comparable change of the HAMD-scores over time with very similar scores in moderate depression and dysthymia (mild depression: HAMD-means: 13.5at baseline vs. 3.3 after 12 weeks; moderate depression: HAMD-means: 18.2at baseline vs. 5.5 after 12 weeks). In a 2. analysis the patients were separated into 7 age-groups (from <18 years to >65 years). All age-groups, including the elderly, showed the above mentioned significant and comparable change of the HAMD-scores over time. Conclusion: This revaluation indicates that there is neither an influence of the disease classification (i.e. mild or moderate depressive disorders) nor of the age to the time course of the treatment outcome in patients treated with St. John's wort extract (STW 3-VI).

References: 1. Demling et al., Nervenheilkunde 2004, 23:160.