Gislei Frota Aragao, Nara Ingrid Lima Souto, Emerson Jose Morais and Tatiana Paschoalette Rodrigues Bachur
State University of Ceara, Brazil
Federal University of Ceara, Brazil
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Neurol Neurophysiol
Depression is a common illness worldwide, with more than 300 million people affected. Agomelatine is a new antidepressant that has a novel mechanism of action, acting as an agonist for MT1 and MT2melatonergic receptors and as a 5-HT2c receptor antagonist. The safety profile of a drug is directly related to its adverse effects. A literature review on the adverse effects of agomelatine was carried out through the search of scientific articles published between the years 2009 and 2017 in the Medline and Lilacs databases as well in the electronic library ScienceDirect. The descriptors used for the search, individually and in combination, were agomelatine, adverse effects and toxicity. The inclusion criteria were articles on the adverse effects, side effects and toxicity of agomelatine published within the established period, written in English, from which 20 articles were included and analyzed. The results showed that agomelatine can cause serious adverse reactions such as hepatoxicity, reported in 13 articles, as well as a series of mild and moderate events such as somnolence (10), headache (10), nausea (7), fatigue (5), dizziness (5), gastrointestinal symptoms (4), dry mouth (3), diarrhea (3), nasopharyngitis (2), anxiety (2), back pain (1) and changes in the emotional process (1). One selected article reported finding no adverse effects. Thus, although agomelatine has a proven therapeutic effect, it should only be used in patients under strict professional monitoring for its potential adverse effects.
Gislei Frota Aragão, PhD in Pharmacology, Professor of Medicine Course at the State University of Ceará (Brazil) and coordinator of the Group of Studies in Neuroinflammation and Neurotoxicology. He develops studies in Neuropharmacology and Neurotoxicology and is a reviewer of scientific journals and a project manager.
Email:gislei.frota@uece.br
