Amazing achievement and very well deserved Raymond, congratulations

In a letter published in the NEJM on December 14th, we responded to the comments by colleagues on our paper published in the journal on adjunctive antidepressant maintenance therapy. Our response provides further insights that might help with the interpretation of study results.

An exciting opportunity to join the newly established concurrent disorders division as an academic faculty member and work with colleagues in the division to build a world class translational research program in concurrent disorders

Many people who are experiencing bipolar depression don't respond well to currently available treatments. This study will test a new treatment for bipolar depression as our pilot trial showed promising results.

Congratulations Jill, amazing achievement and very well deserved honor.

High placebo response during the first 2 weeks in both groups impacted primary outcome. Exploratory analysis of data from week 2 onwards shows nearly a 7 point greater reduction in MADRS scores in CBD group vs placebo group. Clearly, need further RCTs to test CBD efficacy.

Our pilot trial just published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry showed a signal in the post-hoc analysis for the efficacy of CBD in treating depressive symptoms in BD. Hence, starting a large multicentre RCT funded by the CIHR to test efficacy.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37920963/

People with bipolar disorder spend 70% of symptomatic periods experiencing depressive symptoms despite current treatments. Thus, more innovative treatments are urgently needed to treat bipolar depression. Our large RCT is recruiting to test if CBD treats depression in BD.

An opportunity to work in beautiful British Columbia as an academic faculty member of UBC Psychiatry and new Northern Centre for Clinical Research.

This article provides a summary of CANMAT/ISBD 2018 guidelines with new evidence incorporated for an upto date guidance for clinicians for managing BD. Stay tuned for a more comprehensive update of the guidelines in 2024

Congratulations Scott, a highly deserved honor given your huge contributions to Canadian Psychiatry, the field of psychiatric epidemiology and mood disorders.

Congratulations to Scott B. Patten on being named a Distinguished Fellow of the CanPsychiatricAssoc - a nice recognition of a remarkable career, including serving as Editor-in-Chief of The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

With more than 50% of Phase 3 trials over the past 20 years failing/ negative, finding effective and safe treatments for bipolar depression has been incredibly challenging. Innovations in clinical trial designs and drugs with novel mechanisms are urgently needed.

The July issue focuses on university students with papers on the impact of COVID-19, trends in stress, and the opportunities for prevention and early intervention. Find it here: journals.sagepub.com/toc/cpab/68/7

UBC press release acknowledges that primary outcome was not significant.

Also, pre-specified sensitivity analysis which included data from week 6 onwards when treatment between the groups differed shows antidepressants prevent any mood episode and depressive episodes. Clinicians may be interested in reviewing all these outcomes.

The primary outcome of the study was not significant. However, the secondary outcome which is reported in the paper including in the abstract, shows that antidepressant therapy significantly reduces the risk of depressive relapse.

We are working on the open label data manuscript, which will provide more information about response and remission rates and switch rates with adjunctive antidepressant therapy in acute bipolar depression. Stay tuned!

Also, the pre-specified sensitivity analysis which included data from week 6 onwards when one group continued antidepressants and the other tapered and switched to placebo shows significant benefit in preventing mood episodes and depressive episodes!

I am afraid the interpretation of results for clinicians may not be as straightforward Michael! HR for prevention of depression is 0.43 which is highly significant but HR for mania while also large is not significant but the confidence intervals are wide raising uncertainty.