laboratory tests Archives - Gateway Psychiatric

Inflammation Testing and Antidepressant Selection

Peter Forster — Sat, 14 Mar 2020 16:30:35 +0000

Inflammation and C Reactive Protein Inflammation is often seen in people with depression. And there is evidence to suggest that it predicts treatment response. The most widely accepted standard test to measure inflammation is the C-reactive protein, or CRP. This is a protein that is produced by the liver in inflammatory states. The American Heart Association and the Centers for ...

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Finger Stick Lab Tests

Peter Forster — Sun, 17 Jun 2018 16:29:56 +0000

Finger stick lab tests have the potential to significantly improve the quality of the care at Gateway Psychiatric. Regular monitoring of labs are an important part of good care for many of our patients, but some find it difficult to get labs done on time. A new technology from clinical laboratory provider OpAns may allow us to perform many of ...

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Genetic Testing for Depression Drugs

Peter Forster — Sat, 11 Oct 2014 14:25:06 +0000

Genetic testing for depression drugs is a new approach to selecting medications that may have value, especially in patients with treatment resistant depression. We have been using the Genecept Assay for patients with treatment resistant depression and have found that the results improve our ability to choose effective treatments. Patients who have failed multiple adequate trials of medications are much less likely to ...

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Genetic Testing Guides Treatment for Bipolar or Depression

Peter Forster — Wed, 27 Aug 2014 13:58:58 +0000

We have been using a relatively new assay from a company called Genomind (the Genecept test) in some of our patients with bipolar and/or depression. The test involves a saliva sample which is analyzed for ten gene variants that may be useful in guiding treatment. So far we find that in about half of the patients with treatment resistant depression ...

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Treatment of Fatigue in Patients with Depression or Bipolar

Peter Forster — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 06:08:27 +0000

Treatment of depression in patients with depression or bipolar is often complicated. If medications are prescribed, will they make mood symptoms worse, or have other significant adverse effects? And yet fatigue is common in people with a history of depression (it occurs in up to 10% of the general population and is much more common in women, who have a ...

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Biomarker for Suicidality

admin — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 17:11:32 +0000

A just published study by Jerry Guintivano, et al, in the July issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry reports having identified a gene that seemed to predict suicide. The study used one population to identify the risk association and then confirmed it prospectively in a second population. Zachary Kaminsky, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at ...

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Simple Test May Predict Which Antidepressant Will Work

admin — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 14:19:50 +0000

A simple laboratory test may predict which antidepressant will work best. This is the result of a study reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry by a team of Canadian and European researchers. The study was part of larger research program (Genome-Based Therapeutic Drugs for Depression – an effort to find biomarkers to guide medication selection) and it identified C-reactive ...

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