Reus V I
Biol Psychiatry. 1982 Mar;17(3):317-26.
The dexamethasone suppression test (DST) has proven to be of clinical utility in the diagnosticc assessment of patients with primary endogenous depressive illness. Studies comparing individuals who show suppression of plasma cortisol after dexamethasone with those showing nonsuppression have thus far been unable to elicit clinical variables that might differentiate the two groups. Some investigators have suggested as an alternative strategy the usage of the biological variable of interest as the independent rather than the dependent variable. In this study we compared the objective and subjective characteristics of 118 psychiatric inpatients who underwent the DST and were divided on the basis of their response into suppressor and nonsuppressor categories. In the first analysis the diagnostic classification of the patient was not considered. In a secondary analysis the clinical characteristics of only those patients with primary endogenous depression are examined. The data show that independent of diagnosis nonsuppressors are noted to have a greater incidence of subjective complaints. These differences between groups are no longer evident on discharge illustrating a significantly better prognosis for the nonsuppression group.
地塞米松抑制试验（DST）已被证明在原发性内源性抑郁症患者的诊断评估中具有临床实用性。迄今为止，比较地塞米松后血浆皮质醇被抑制的个体与未被抑制的个体的研究，未能找出可能区分这两组的临床变量。一些研究者提出了一种替代策略，即将感兴趣的生物学变量用作自变量而非因变量。在本研究中，我们比较了118名接受DST的精神科住院患者的客观和主观特征，并根据他们的反应将其分为抑制者和非抑制者类别。在首次分析中，未考虑患者的诊断分类。在二次分析中，仅检查了那些患有原发性内源性抑郁症患者的临床特征。数据显示，与诊断无关，非抑制者的主观抱怨发生率更高。两组之间的这些差异在出院时不再明显，这表明非抑制组的预后明显更好。
