Risks and benefits of medications for panic disorder: a comparison of SSRIs and benzodiazepines.

The literature search yielded 4,957 articles related to the theme. Of these, 24 articles were included in this review. Despite their usefulness in PD, SSRIs are associated with a delay of several weeks in onset of therapeutic effect and have the potential to exacerbate anxiety and panic early in the treatment course. Benzodiazepines present rapid onset of action, but can cause tolerance and dependence. Despite strong evidence of the effectiveness of SSRIs and benzodiazepines in the treatment of PD, few trials have performed head-to-head comparisons of these two drug classes. Future studies on the pharmacological treatment of PD should make direct comparisons of risks, benefits, and limitations of each group. This could help improve the evidence-based pharmacotherapy of PD.