A short term open clinical trial of clobazam in the treatment of patients with panic attacks.

Clobazam, a 1-5 benzodiazepine with anxiolytic properties, was evaluated in the treatment of patients with DSM-III panic disorder or agoraphobia with panic attacks. In this open clinical trial, 10 of the 15 patients completed 8 weeks of treatment. Six of the 10 completers (60%) were responders (75% reduction in the number of panic attacks from baseline) at the end of 8 weeks. Of the responders so defined, 5 of the 6 were panic free. At the end of week 8 the average dose for the responders to medication was 50 +/- 17 (S.D.) mg per day. Clobazam was well tolerated at the doses used with the few side-effects recorded as mild to moderate. The study suggests that further placebo-controlled studies are warranted to evaluate clobazam's potential antipanic effect.