New blood test could personalise depression treatment

Scientists have developed a blood test to predict whether depressed patients will respond to common antidepressants. They said that this could herald a new area of personalised treatment for people with depression, where patients who have blood inflammation above a certain threshold could receive more aggressive treatment. The research, published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology ,1 focused on two biomarkers that measure blood inflammation: macrophage migration inhibitory factor and interleukin 1β. Previous research has shown that patients with depression who are resistant to conventional antidepressants have higher concentrations of …