Objective To explore the role of plasma inflammatory related factors in predicting the antidepressant efficacy of escitalopram in patients with depression in the early stage of treatment. Methods A total of 85 patients with major depressive disorder （MDD）， who were treated in the outpatient department of Beijing Anding Hospital Affiliatedd to Capital Medical University from January 2016 to December 2018， were treated with escitalopram for 12 weeks. According to the treatment response， the patients were divided into responders and non-responders. The liquid phase suspension chip technology was used to detect the levels of 21 inflammatory-related factors in the plasma at baseline and 2 week after treatment， and the changes from baseline to week 2 between responders and non-responders were compared. Results After 12 weeks of treatment with escitalopram， there were 62 patients （72.94%） in the respond group and 23 patients （27.06%） in the non-respond group. The 2-week change value of plasma granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor （GM-CSF） （P=0.078）， interferon gamma （IFNγ） （P=0.053）， interleukin 17 （IL-17） （P=0.030）， interferon gamma inducible protein （IP-10） （P=0.046）， monocyte chemokine 1β （MCP-1β） （P=0.080） and tumor necrosis factor （TNFα） （P=0.087） were different between responders and non-responders （P＜ 0.1）. The logistic regression model which combinations of age， gender， BMI and the six factors above from baseline to 2 weeks can reflect the efficacy of escitalopram （AUC=0.702； sensitivity， 0.500； specificity， 0.814）. Conclusions The early changes of inflammation-related factors can predict the antidepressant effect of escitalopram in acute phase， but it still needs to be verified by large-scale independent samples.