This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Harriet Kiltie, MD; T. E. Brown, MD; M. P. Bishop, PhD
Lederle Laboratories Pearl River, NY

JAMA. 1984;251(5):601-602.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

The article by Litovitz and Troutman¹ reporting an "alarming contrast" in mortality rates from overdoses with amoxapine (Asendin) compared with those from other cyclic antidepressants could, we believe, mislead the clinician with regard to both the alleged lethality of amoxapine overdosage and the implied safety of overdosage with other antidepressants.

The Table compares data from their article with data from the nationwide Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) of the National Institutes of Drug Abuse. The frequency of amoxapine overdosage as a percentage of all antidepressant drug overdoses is essentially the same in both reports and closely parallels the comparative prescribing rates for these medicines. However, the disparity in findings of relative frequency with which fatality is reportedly caused by amoxapine is so large that, even given differences in data collection methods, the Litovitz and Troutman conclusion of greater amoxapine lethality can hardly be well founded.

Their . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?