The foreword of the article summarizes some important statistical facts about major depressive disorder. Then the authors discuss the possibilities of augmentation of the antidepressive therapy, in case of its insuffi cient effect or its failure, mainly by using drugs from the group of atypical antipsychotics (AP). From this group of medicaments they chose quetiapin. On the basis of retrospective analysis of medical documentation they selected 24 patients, admitted at the Department of Psychiatry of Military Hospital in Brno with the diagnosis of the affective disorder within the years 2002–2003, to whom quetiapin was used as augmentation of the already adjusted therapy with antidepressant. In the article the authors analyze in detail the selected group focussing on the history of mental diseases, present psychopharmacotherapy, and they also monitor psychiatric comorbidity. At the initiation of treatment with quetiapin they assessed the time needed for titration therapeutic doses in days, maximal doses achieved, the average doses during hospitalization and doses at dismissal into outpatient care. Finally they evaluate the benefi t of using quetiapin for treatment and the incidence of side-effects in the whole selected group. In conclusion they tried to summarize their experience with the use of atypical antipsychotics as augmentation of the affective disorders with references to available medical literature.

        Key words: depressive disorder, quetiapin, augmentation.