BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to document the prevalence of panic states in patients presenting with chest pain in primary care settings, to determine the recognition rate of panic states by family physicians, and to assess the impact of lack of recognition on interventions and costs. METHODS Patients from the South Texas Ambulatory Research Network (STARNET) presenting with a new ...

BACKGROUND The effects of a 35% CO2 challenge were examined in healthy first-degree relatives of panic disorder patients and in healthy control subjects matched for age and gender. METHODS One single inhalation of a 35% CO2/65% O2 challenge was administered to 50 first-degree relatives of panic disorder patients and 50 control subjects. RESULTS The first-degree relatives were more reactive ...

Panic patients consistently show exaggerated lactic acid response to alkalosis, whether produced by hyperventilation or by sodium lactate infusion. Understanding why this occurs may provide important clues to the pathogenesis of panic disorder. Although brain hypoxia from excessive hypocapnia-induced cerebral vasoconstriction is often cited as the mechanism of elevated brain lactic acid in pani...

OBJECTIVE In the present study, we measured hippocampal N-acetyl-l-aspartate (NAA), choline (CHO) and creatine (CRE) values in patients with panic disorder and healthy control subjects using in vivo(1)H MRS. METHODS We scanned 20 patients meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV (DSM-IV) criteria for panic disorder and 20 matched healthy controls with a 1.5 Tesla GE Si...

The objective of this report is to determine whether those patients with panic disorder who have current major depression disorder (MDD) differ from those who do not in terms of demographics, comorbid disorders, severity of illness, nature of symptoms of panic attacks and psychosocial functioning. The sample consisted of 182 patients with current or history of panic disorder measured by standar...

Panic disorder is extremely common, affecting 1 to 3 percent of the US population in its fully developed form.l Up to 10 percent of adults experience partial manifestations of panic disorder at some point in their lives.z Frequently the initial symptoms, such as chest pain, dizziness, or paresthesia, are physical, and it can be difficult to decide how aggressively to search for potential biomed...

This systematic review aimed to examine the results of studies that have investigated the induction of panic attacks and/or the anxiogenic effect of the caffeine challenge test in patients with panic disorder. The literature search was performed in PubMed, Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde and the ISI Web of Knowledge. The words used for the search were caffeine, caffeine challenge test, panic disord...

Cognitive models of panic disorder have emphasized the role of cognitive distortions in the maintenance of this disorder. Several studies have produced results consistent with this hypothesis, but it is still unclear whether cognitive biases precede anxiety disorders or whether they are a consequence of the disorder. In the present study, we compared children of individuals with panic disorder,...

INTRODUCTION: Panic disorder is frequent psychiatric disorder characterized by sudden and unexpected onset of a panic attack, characterized by terror or impending doom, and associated with many somatic symptoms. METHODS: A literature review was performed using the National Library of Medicine PubMed database and Web of Science, including all resources within the period 1991–2011, additional ref...