Reply to Can Pindolol Really Enhance Antidepressant Effect?

Letter to the Editor

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To the Editor: In his letter to the editor, Prof Terao doubts whether pindolol can enhance, apart from accelerate, the antidepressant effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

As correctly stated by Prof Terao, a number needed to treat (NNT) higher than 10 is not clinically meaningful, and therefore an NNT of 13 regarding late clinical response is not relevant. The results of our meta-analysis show that pindolol accelerates antidepressant effects within the first 4 weeks, but not for any longer, as previously reported by Ballesteros and Callado1 and Whale et al.