Australian Prescriber An independent Review Logo
ISSUE 3 JUNE
Letters to the Editor

Correction - Sertraline

  • M.M. Lawrie

The Editorial Executive Committee welcomes letters, which should be less than 250 words. Before a decision to publish is made, letters which refer to a published article may be sent to the author for a response. Any letter may be sent to an expert for comment. When letters are published, they are usually accompanied in the same issue by their responses or comments. The Committee screens out discourteous, inaccurate or libellous statements. The letters are sub-edited before publication. Authors are required to declare any conflicts of interest. The Committee's decision on publication is final.

 

Letter to the editor

Editor, – In his letter regarding antidepressant wash-out periods ('Letters' Aust Prescr 1999;22:3-4), Dr D. Grounds correctly notes that the approved product information for sertraline (Zoloft) explicitly includes reversible MAOIs in the contraindication against use concurrently or within two weeks, and that the product information for the other SSRIs available in Australia are not so explicit.

The subsequent comment from Professor Tiller errs in fact in referring to the product information for Zoloft. The present wording of the contraindication(i.e. explicitly including moclobemide as well as the type-B selective MAOI, selegiline) was adopted in the latter part of 1995 and has remained unchanged since then.

Although we acknowledge that, in many cases, failure to observe this rule has been free of adverse consequences, individual cases have been reported which support Professor Tiller's subsequent comment about 'prior good luck', and we stand by the terms of the contraindication.

M.M. Lawrie
Director, Medical Affairs
Pfizer Australia
West Ryde, N.S.W.

M.M. Lawrie

Director, Medical Affairs, Pfizer Australia West Ryde, N.S.W.