Anxiety Treatment and Tolerability

While Velazidone may seem suitable for anxiety disorders due to its mechanism resembling SSRIs and buspirone, FDA approval is lacking in this area. Clinical trials on generalized anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder revealed limited efficacy and poor tolerability, with most trials showing modest effects and high dropout rates. Velazidone's performance in anxious depression is mixed, showing improvements in anxious symptoms but being outperformed by other medications like citalopram in treating anxiety in depressed patients. The drug's sexual side effect profile, while initially promising compared to SSRIs, presents concerns, with some patients experiencing sexual dysfunction, albeit at a lower rate than with traditional SSRIs.