A risk-benefit assessment of buspirone in the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Anxiety disorders include generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and social phobia. Consideration of the chronicity of these disorders reveals that anxiety disorders first occur during early adolescence or young adulthood, and can wax and wane over periods of 5 to 10 years. Thus, in considering treatment, the emphasis must be placed on long term, rather than short term, management. Comorbidity studies reveal that untreated patients with anxiety disorders are at risk of social and psychological consequences, as well as disability resulting from comorbid and secondary disorders. Comparisons between buspirone and the benzodiazepines in treating patients with generalised anxiety disorder reveal that long term use of benzodiazepines is associated with adverse effects, particularly in elderly patients. Buspirone appears to have an onset of action equivalent to that of the benzodiazepines, to be well tolerated in the long term, to lack problems of habituation and withdrawal, and to be useful in patients with masked comorbid depression. In patients with panic disorder and social phobia, buspirone has not been clearly shown to be effective in comparison with the reference standards; in those patients with OCD, there are only preliminary indications of efficacy, which merit a more adjunctive role.