Am J Psychiatry 1988; 145:666-674
Copyright © 1988 by American Psychiatric Association
Drugs and the DST: need for a reappraisal
RP Kraus, P Grof and GM Brown
Department of Psychiatry, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ont., Canada.
It has generally been assumed that psychotropic drugs do not influence
results on the dexamethasone suppression test (DST), except in some
specific situations. Yet they directly affect the activity of many
neurotransmitter systems, which in turn regulate hypothalamic-pituitary-
adrenal (HPA) axis functioning. Several reports have shown correlations
between the intake of or recent withdrawal from psychoactive substances and
changes in DST results. A review of the DST literature reveals that these
effects have not been controlled in most DST studies. It is therefore
possible that the consequences of intake of psychotropic agents may have
contributed to the debate surrounding the DST by producing unappreciated
spurious DST results.
