Celecoxib as an adjunct in the treatment of depressive or mixed episodes of bipolar disorder: a double‐blind, randomized, placebo‐controlled study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether the cox-2 inhibitor celecoxib has antidepressant effects in bipolar disorder (BD) patients during depressive or mixed phases. METHODS: We studied 28 DSM-IV BD patients who were experiencing a depressive or mixed episode and were on a stable dose of a mood stabilizer or atypical antipsychotic medication. Subjects were randomized to receive 6 weeks of double-blind placebo or celecoxib (400 mg/day) treatment. Current mood stabilizer or antipsychotic medication remained at the same doses during the trial. RESULTS: Intention-to-treat analysis showed that the patients receiving celecoxib had lower Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HamD) scores after 1 week of treatment compared to the patients receiving placebo, but this difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.09). The improvement in the first week of treatment was statistically significant when the analysis included only the subjects who completed the full 6-week trial (p = 0.03). The two groups did not differ significantly on depressive or manic symptoms from the second week until the end of the trial. Celecoxib was well tolerated with the exception of two subjects who dropped out of the study due to rash. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that adjunctive treatment with celecoxib may produce a rapid-onset antidepressant effect in BD patients experiencing depressive or mixed episodes.