Anti-depressant 'could help people with fibromyalgia'

A drug currently used to treat depression could also help patients with fibromyalgia, a new report has suggested.

The researchers published their review of previous studies into the effects of serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) duloxetine in the journal BMC Neurology.

They looked at three studies that had compared duloxetine with a placebo for patients with fibromyalgia. It was found that the treatment helped patients with fibromyalgia significantly more than the placebo in all the trials.

However, the researchers did note that patients taking duloxetine were more likely than those using the placebo to withdraw from the trial due to adverse events.

The most common adverse side-effects of the drug were nausea, somnolence, constipation and reduced appetite.

As a result, Dr Asquad Sultan and the rest of the team concluded: "Duloxetine is … effective for the treatment … [of] fibromyalgia, judged by the outcome of at least 50 per cent pain relief over 12 weeks."

They added that the results "suggest that this is likely to be a useful drug in … difficult-to-treat conditions, where typically only a minority of patients respond".

A spokesman for the Arthritis Research Campaign said that anti-depressants such as amitriptyline were already widely prescribed for people with fibromyalgia.

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