Adjunct Triptorelin in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Clients Receiving Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs)

Analog triptorelin is one of the effective agonists for the treatment of reproductive disorders, particularly prostate cancer. Due to results of previous studies, we hypothesized that obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD can be effectively treated with the long-term administration of a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) analog, namely triptorelin. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of triptorelin injection in clientswith OCD.

This randomized single-blind clinical trial was performed on 30 clientswith OCD who had a Yale-Brown score of > 17 after 8 weeks of treatment. The participants were randomly assigned into twogroups of triptorelin and placebo. The clientsin the intervention group were treated with Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), includingfluoxetine, in addition to triptorelin threetimes a month for at least 8 weeks. Clientsin the control group received injection of distilled water as placebo threetimes in addition to the routine treatment. The outcome was evaluated by Yale-Brown OCD scale (Y-BOCS) at the baseline, as well as 4, 8, and, 20 weeks after the end of the treatment.

The mean scores of Y-BOCS in the intervention and control groups was 30.5 ±67.6 and 30.5 ±67.6, respectively, before intervention, indicating no significant difference between the twogroups (P = 0.0.8). The comparison of Y-BOCS scores after the intervention showed a significant difference between the twogroups in the scores 4 (P = 0.01), 8 (P < 0.005), and 20 (P < 0.005) weeks after the treatment. With regards to the side effects of the medicine, 6.7% (n = 1) of the clientsin the control group developed headache and 66.7% (n = 10) had late period in intervention group. The results revealed a significant difference between the twogroups in terms of side effects (P < 0.005).

The results of this study showed triptorelin decreased the symptomsof OCD. The effectiveness of triptorelin in the treatment of symptoms in clientswith OCD was confirmed in our study. However, due to the limited research addressing this domain, future studies are suggested to clarify this conclusion.