Psychopharmacology in anorexia nervosa: an update of current literature and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Anorexia Nervosa (AN) presents the highest mortality rate among psychiatric disorders, with a standard mortality ration of 5.86 and one in five deaths in AN patients is by suicide. Despite the large use of psychotropic drugs in AN, to date, Food and Drug Administration has not approved any psychoactive treatment forAN. Objectives: To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of published Randomized Controlled Trials investigating psychopharmacological treatment of AN, in order to define their potential efficacy and their clinical use. Methods: The reporting of this meta-analysis follows the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement. An extensive literature search was performed. All RCTs enrolling patients with AN, comparing at least one psychotropic drug with another drug, placebo, Treatment-As-Usual (TAU) or no treatment, were included. The main outcome was the effect of psychoactive drugs on general and AN specific psychopathology, and on body mass index. Results: Figure 1 reports the studies selection process. Of the seven studies included in the meta-analysis, five showed no significant effect between olanzapine and placebo for weight recovery. No significant result was found for ANs psychopathology, depressive and anxious symptoms for every molecule studied. Conclusions: In the last years no RCT has been published on this topic and none of the novel drugs released have been studied. To date, there is no evidence for the use of any psychotropic drug inAN for weight recovery and for any comorbid psychiatric symptom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]