Tybamate—A Perplexing Drug

Tybamate was evaluated in a controlled, double-blind study conducted with 126 anxious neurotic patients seen in general practice. Tybamate produced significantly more improvement than placebo only at the final four-week evaluation. The largest tybamate-placebo differences were observed on measures of somatic manifestations of free anxiety, followed by measures of bound anxiety such as phobic-obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Severity of initial symptomatology was related to the patient's response to tybamate but not to placebo; those patients who were initially sickest improved significantly more than patients who were initially less sick.