Effect of ethinyl estradiol on the panic response to the panicogenic agent pentagastrin

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial paper looks at Pentagastrin.

Panic disorder (PD) symptomatology has been reported to be altered by hormonal events or treatments which affect estrogen levels.

Psychiatry, 39 (1982) 701-703; Am.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 11 patients taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults, both men and women.

Subjects were 9 male healthy controls and 11 male PD patients.

Only male subjects were included in the present study; however, the researchers are currently investigating the influence of female gonadal hormones on the panic response to pentagastrin in female PD patients and healthy controls.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover.

Because people in this Pentagastrin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Blinding on both sides kept the patients and researchers unaware of who received Pentagastrin.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Pentagastrin group a baseline to be compared against.

Each person switched between Pentagastrin and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

What Was Measured

Panic disorder (PD) symptomatology has been reported to be altered by hormonal events or treatments which affect estrogen levels.

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Arousal, Ethinyl Estradiol, Panic, Panic Disorder, Pentagastrin and Premedication.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Pentagastrin in 11 patients.

With fewer than 40 people, it is a small study, so it is better read as an early signal for further research than as a settled answer.

Results are reported in around 3 sentences of the abstract; we leave them to the paper itself rather than summarise them.

The publication is from 2001 (Journal of affective disorders), a journal based in Netherlands.

More context: the Pentagastrin compound page, all human trials.