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Mirtazapine for severe gastroparesis unresponsive to conventional prokinetic treatment.

Kim SW, Shin IS, Kim JM, Kang HC, Mun JU, Yang SJ, Yoon JS

Department of Psychiatry, Chonnam National Univ. Hospital, 8 Hak-dong, Dong-ku, Kwangju 501-757, Republic of Korea.

Gastroparesis is a condition of abnormal gastric motility characterized by delayed gastric emptying without evidence of mechanical outlet obstruction. The authors describe complete remission of recurrent postprandial discomfort, nausea, and vomiting within 1 week of starting mirtazapine in a gastroparetic patient who had failed to respond, in 7 months, to conventional prokinetics (erythromycin, metoclopramide, domperidone, perphenazine, itopride, bethanechol, and/or tegaserod) and pyloric injection of botulinum toxin. This is the first report to show that mirtazapine may be an effective alternative when gastroparesis is refractory to conventional measures.

Published 8 September 2006 in Psychosomatics, 47(5): 440-2.
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