Cardiovascular effects of imipramine, fluvoxamine, and placebo in depressed outpatients.

BACKGROUND: The data presented represent cardiovascular parameters collected from one site of a larger, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 6-week outpatient efficacy study of the serotonin uptake inhibitor fluvoxamine in depressed outpatients. METHOD: In this smaller study, we compared fluvoxamine (N = 17) to the prototypic antidepressant, imipramine (N = 14), and to placebo (N = 15). Specific parameters investigated were drug effects on postural pulse and blood pressure changes and ECG parameters including PR, QRS, and QTc intervals and ventricular heart rate. RESULTS: Fluvoxamine had few effects on measured parameters. Imipramine produced statistically significant changes on all measures; placebo had no effects on cardiac measures. CONCLUSION: Our data support that fluvoxamine, in a sample of healthy depressed outpatients, has little effect on cardiovascular function. Further study and clinical experience with this drug will be necessary before the full extent of its cardiac profile is known.