Salivation after Single-Doses of the New Antidepressants Femoxetine, Mianserin and Citalopram. A Cross-Over Study

Abstract Twelve healthy volunteers were given oral single doses of a reference drug (nortriptyline), test drugs, and placebo on a randomised single-blind basis at weekly intervals. The doses corresponded to average daily patient medication. Spontaneous whole mouth salivation was measured before (at 10 p.m.) and 10 hours after drug administration (at 8 a.m.). Drug plasma levels were determined after 4 and 10 hours. When analysing the salivations 10 hours after drug administration adjusted for the effects of the pre-treatment salivations, statistically significant inhibition of salivation was found after nortriptyline (56%), femoxetine (34%), and mianserin (29%) when compared with placebo, while for citalopram and cis- and trans-flupenthixol no significant inhibition of salivation was demonstrated (Fig. 1, Table 5). From the estimated log linear regression coefficients, relating adjusted salivation rates and drug plasma levels 10 hours after drug administration (Table 6), and reported average steady-state plasma drug levels (Table 7), semiquantitative predictions of the average level of anticholinergic activity during long-term treatment may be made: For femoxetine and mianserin, moderate anticholinergic activity, less pronounced than with nortriptyline, are predicted, while for citalopram no such activity can be predicted (Table 7).