Conclusions
MDD, depression
Among participants with baseline HAMD-17 scores of 20 or higher from 232 FDA trials for antidepressant monotherapy for MDD, all segments of the distribution of depression responses were more favorable with active treatment vs control. These findings suggest that if our statistical assumptions hold, then there is the possibility that nearly all patients with MDD with baseline HAMD-17 scores of 20 or greater experience at least some benefit from antidepressant therapy, although the magnitude of the response is more clinically meaningful in some patients than others. If our assumptions are not met, it is also possible that the same aggregate benefit is concentrated in substantially fewer patients. Regardless, estimating the percentage of patients who benefit from antidepressant therapy is a challenging task that depends on the statistical assumptions used.