Seroquel for Everything Update: GAD

I have mentioned earlier that Seroquel is being studied as a treatment for virtually every psychiatric disorder under the sun. You can now access a very brief outline of the latest Seroquel study for generalized anxiety disorder here.

The official title: An International, Multicenter, Randomized, Double-Blind, Parallel-Group, Placebo-Controlled, Active-Controlled Study of the Efficacy and Safety of Sustained-Release Quetiapine Fumarate (Seroquel SR™ ) in the Treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (SILVER)

Virtually all big drug trials now have cute acronyms. Seroquel has used BOLDER before (here and here) and now it's SILVER. If only the academic researchers associated with these studies put as much thought and time into their work on the data analysis and writeup of these studies as the marketing teams did in coming up with the acronyms.

And how, exactly, did SILVER come from the above title? Seems like a stretch...

But wait, there's more.

Here's another study. In this one, Seroquel will be compared with placebo in the treatment of GAD in elderly folks. And still another study, this one apparently comparing Seroquel to placebo in the treatment of GAD, again. How about another one -- this one comparing Seroquel to Lexapro for GAD.

And another one -- this one apparently will put folks on Seroquel for a while, then follow those who show improvement. Some who improve will get switched to a placebo while some stay on Seroquel. If people switched to placebo show more anxiety, then AstraZeneca and its allied academics will say that Seroquel is a good long-term treatment. Of course, maybe it's just that Seroquel has withdrawal symptoms, and that is what caused the anxiety. Yes, this is all hypothetical, but it is the card that has been played time and time again for other psychiatric disorders.