[Is there a specific pharmacological treatment for anxiety disorders? Summary of a controversy].

The acute pharmacological treatment of anxiety disorders is barely specific with the exception of the obsessive-compulsive disorder: it responds preferentially to potent serotoninergic antidepressants only. For all other anxiety disorders all antidepressants regardless of their mechanism of action could be equally efficient thanks to their common class effect and are considered to be the pharmacological treatment of first choice. Benzodiazepines that also share a common class effect are recommended as possible and temporary adjuvants. Augmentation strategies for the cases of refractory anxiety disorders are also non-specific: lithium, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants.