Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common, debilitating disorder that affects
∼8% of the U.S. population, with even higher estimates of ∼20%, in U.S. veterans of
Afghanistan and Iraq (
1
). Although psychotherapeutic and pharmacological interventions can significantly reduce
PTSD symptoms, there remains considerable room for improvement (
2
,
3
). Only two pharmacological therapeutics, sertraline and paroxetine, have been approved
by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for PTSD (
2
). Response to these selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors rarely exceeds 60%, and
only 20% to 30% of patients achieve complete remission of symptoms (
3
). Thus, harnessing a better understanding of the biological underpinnings of this
heterogeneous disorder and identifying biomarkers of PTSD and trauma-related brain
disorders that can stratify the patient population and predict treatment response
are overdue for enabling the development of novel therapeutics and precision medicine
approaches (
4
,
5
,
6
).To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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References
- Posttraumatic stress disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey.Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1995; 52: 1048-1060
- It is time to address the crisis in the pharmacotherapy of posttraumatic stress disorder: A consensus statement of the PTSD Psychopharmacology Working Group.Biol Psychiatry. 2017; 82: e51-e59
- Invisible wounds of war: Psychological and cognitive injuries, their consequences, and services to assist recovery.Psychiatr Serv. 2009; 60: 273
- Biological studies of post-traumatic stress disorder.Nat Rev Neurosci. 2012; 13: 769-787
- Post-traumatic stress disorder.Nat Rev Dis Primers. 2015; 1: 15057
- Post-traumatic stress disorder.N Engl J Med. 2017; 376: 2459-2469
- BEST (Biomarkers, EndpointS, and other Tools) Resource.Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, Silver Spring and Bethesda, MD2016
Article Info
Publication History
Published online: October 14, 2019
Accepted:
July 23,
2019
Received in revised form:
July 21,
2019
Received:
December 3,
2018
Identification
Copyright
© 2019 Society of Biological Psychiatry.
