The dexamethasone suppression test in depressive and schizophrenic patients under controlled treatment conditions.

Endogenous depressive and schizophrenic patients demonstrated the same frequency of pathological DST results after admission. After 3 weeks of psychopharmacological treatment the percentage of abnormal DST results was significantly reduced in both groups, although the treatment conditions were different. A correlation between the DST non-suppression and intensity of depression was observed only in the depressive group, not in the schizophrenic group. Normalization of DST results in depressive patients was mostly associated with an improvement of depressive scores. Other course patterns of DST results did not seem to be combined with psychopathological changes. From this data it has to be concluded that DST non-suppression is in some part related to depressive symptoms, but is not characteristic or specific for endogenous depression or for depressivity.