Monoamine oxidase inhibitors: indications, usage, and interactions

Questions from the audience

1. What advice do you give around MAOI interactions with food?
2. Who has initiated using an MAOI and why? (Question directed to audience)
3. Which type of agent do you use for which type of depression?
4. The STAR*D trial had an arm with MAOIs, and they were found to not be of much benefit compared to the other strategies. Did that have to do with the way the study was put together?
5. If you were heading up the NHMRC what trial would you sponsor?
6. With MAOIs it’s ‘start low, go slow’. When it comes to ‘go slow’, how do you judge how quickly to increase the dose?
7. How high (dosage) do you go?
8. Working with older folk there is some trouble treating anxiety. Early dementia can have very hard to treat anxiety. How do you feel about using phenelzine versus benzodiazepines?
9. The mood disorder guidelines from RANZCP talks about using MAOIs in the case of atypical symptoms of depression. What is your experience with that?
10. What should we do with the DSM?
11. Do you want to comment on the European approach on whether you can look at ways medications actually work rather than building a false construct and then subjecting them to trials?

Further reading

• Supplementary information for this presentation
• Psychotropical Research
• International MAOI Expert Group

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