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Continuing the supermarket theme, when shopping, some things are highlighted because they are new or seasonal, while others are highlighted because the manufacturer has decided to do a marketing push. This is the also true of a major conference like the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting. Being the largest scientific meeting in psychiatry, new and occasionally exciting data is presented. There is also a clear and highly stylized effort to educate, inform and, of course, influence the prescribing habits of clinicians.
The hot topics?
The ADHD wars have heated up fueled by slow release formulations of the tried-and-true stimulants and a new non-stimulant medication. The benefits to the profession are greater than just new pharmacological interventions. Studies looking at adult ADHD, comorbidities such as OCD, substance abuse and driving performance help improve the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of ADHD.
The other disorder that is getting much attention is Bipolar Disorder. Many of the atypical antipsychotic medications are awaiting an FDA indication for bipolar. They seem to have some efficacy for mood stabilization but are challenged by the real mood stabilizers (aka, some of the antiepileptic drugs) that are getting a lot of attention and some good data. Augmentation is the buzzword.
Anxiety disorders always attract some attention and a number of SSRI's either have or are seeking indications for the various anxiety disorders. What was a little different this year, was the concept of co-morbidities (anxiety with depression, anxiety with pain) and some studies using the atypical antipsychotics for anxiety/panic disorder.
There are always many presentations on depression and since it is the single biggest mental disorder and second only to cardiovascular disease (WHO) there will always be many sessions. This year we saw algorithms for diagnosis and real discussions of remission and prevention of relapse. There was much talk of the physical concomitants of depression, pain, fatigue, as well as general discussions of depression and medical illness (parkinsons and other neurological disorders, cancer, HIV) Comorbitity is a keyword here too - especially with anxiety. There were also discussions of the challenges in treating bipolar depression.
Sex always sells
One area that generated much interest and will do so for the next couple of years is sexual pharmacology. Many patients taking the various psychiatric medications endure sexual side effects. Pharmacological treatment of these side effects (such as ED) is off-label to the currently available medications - but not for long. Research is being done, books are being written and the pharma's are investing a great of money in new drugs that are in the pipeline. And as we know, sex always sells.
Comeback of the year
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) has again come into the spotlight. Numerous presentaions featured CBT for the treatment of schizophrenia and other severe mental illness, personality disorders, panic, adhd, insomnia, and OCD. Evidenced based data supports CBT and psychiatrists are more interested in adding these tools into their clinical repertoire than ever before.
If you don't quite get the supermarket concept, just keep in mind that more than 1,000 clinical papers, symposia, new research poster sessions, and workshops were presented at the meeting - the bulk of which spanned approximately 3 and 1/2 days.
1:08:14 PM 
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