Am J Psychiatry 1989; 146:1299-1303
Copyright © 1989 by American Psychiatric Association
Panic disorder and the menstrual cycle: panic disorder patients, healthy control subjects, and patients with premenstrual syndrome
MB Stein, PJ Schmidt, DR Rubinow and TW Uhde
Biological Psychiatry Branch, NIMH, Bethesda, MD 20892.
The authors prospectively evaluated 20 normally menstruating women with
panic disorder across a minimum of two drug-free menstrual cycles. There
were no significant effects of menstrual cycle phase on anxiety ratings in
the panic disorder patients or in 20 healthy control subjects; this
contrasted with a robust increase in premenstrual anxiety in 20 subjects
with premenstrual syndrome. These findings suggest that the symptoms of
panic disorder are not commonly exacerbated by the premenstrual phase of
the menstrual cycle and highlight the need for prospective evaluation in
the attempt to document an association between psychiatric symptoms and the
menstrual cycle.
