Panel urges treatment for panic disorder.

Effective treatments, both psychological and pharmaceutical, exist for panic disorder, a condition that strikes about one in 75 people at some time in their lives. Unfortunately, no systematic studies exist to guide physicians and mental health clinicians to the best form of treatment for specific cases of panic disorder, concludes a report issued in 1991 by a panel of psychiatrists and psychologists convened by the National Institutes of Health in Maryland. Psychiatrists generally emphasize drug treatment for panic disorder and believe the repeated attacks stem from an imbalance of specific chemical messengers in the brain, Layton McCurdy, a psychiatrist at the Medical University of South Carolina, notes. Although the report takes a "balanced and judicious" stand, panic disorder still evokes considerable controversy, says psychiatrist Gerald L. Klerman of Cornell University Medical College in New York City. Klerman notes that debate centers on whether panic disorder represents a diagnosis distinct from more general forms of anxiety concerns over the addictive potential of benzodiazepines and questions about the actual efficacy of psychological treatments.