Reported cases of post-traumatic stress disorder are increasing, and trends indicate that growth will continue as more military men and women return from overseas service. But treatment help doesn’t appear to be coming quickly.
So far in 2017, six dermatology drugs have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but no drug has been approved for treatment of PTSD since 2001. At this point, two drugs — Paxil and Zoloft — have been given FDA approval for PTSD.
The Department of Veterans Affairs created a PTSD Psychopharmacology Working Group, which has issued an urgent plea for the development and approval of new drugs for PTSD as part of a national mental health priority.
Here to talk about it is Dr. John Krystal, director of the Clinical Neuroscience Division at the VA National Center for PTSD.