Anti-Inflammatory Activity of a Selection of Antidepressant Drugs

Anti-inflammatory activity has been reported for a few of antidepressant drugsand in contrary sertraline has potentiated inflammation . in this study, antiinflammatoryeffect of a collection of antidepressant drugs belonging to differentclasses was evaluated to help a rational selection of these drugs in disease conditionssuch as association of depression or anxiety with inflammatory diseases such asrheumatoid arthritis . male wistar rats weighing 160-200 g were used. antiinflammatoryactivity was assessed using carrageenan-induced paw edema test.amitriptyline, nortriptyline, desipramine, trimiprarnine, fluvoxamine (37.5 and 75mg/kg), fluoxetine (30 and 60 mglkg), citalopram (10 and 40 mglkg), doxepin andmaprotiline (25 and 50 mglkg) were admini stered s.c. 30 min. prior to subplantarinjection of 100 ij,l carrageenan suspension (l% w/v). difference of paw volumemeasured just before and 4 h after carrageenan inje ction was considered as anindex of inflammation. except nortriptyline and citalopram, all tested drugs showedanti-inflammatory activity. it seems that the anti-inflammatory effect is not correlatedwith inhibition of norepinephrine and/or serotonin reuptake transporters and furtherstudies are needed to clarify the exact mechanism of their anti-inflammatory action .