Half of six million major depressive disorder with comorbid panic attack cases go untreated

Sep 10 2009

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that in the U.S., out of six million cases of major depressive disorder with comorbid panic attack, three million are untreated. Comorbid mental disorders are influential factors impacting the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. With this type of information drug developers can expand their markets by showing physicians that comorbid indications often go untreated.

The new report entitled Epidemiology Comorbidity Series: Cognos also finds that a diagnosed adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) case has an 82 percent probability of being treated for ADHD when comorbid with oppositional defiant disorder and a 22 percent probability of being treated for ADHD if comorbid with nicotine dependence. This highlights that the probability of treatment of ADHD varies depending on the comorbid indication and that the comorbidity can affect and mask the diagnosis of an indication.

"Physicians may treat ADHD patients with comorbid oppositional defiant disorder more frequently because their symptoms profile is more severe," stated Donal Minihan, MVB, Ph.D., epidemiologist at Decision Resources.

Decision Resources' new Epidemiology Comorbidity Series analyzes indications and their most important comorbid disorders by effectively sizing patient populations. This series allows you to identify where opportunities for treatment lie within a given indication and comorbidity and it demonstrates how comorbid disorders can affect and mask the diagnosis of an indication.