Clinical Impressions on Treatment of Obsessional States with Intravenous Clomipramine (Anafranil)

Abstract

On the basis of clinical, albeit limited, experience, the treatment of obsessional states with intravenous clomipramine holds a great deal of hope. Patients find this method of treatment acceptable. It should be administered on an in-patient basis or in the day hospital and form the focal point of a treatment regimen. Clomipramine infusion appears to be effective in reducing both anxiety and depression and these aspects of its action must be submitted to further study in elucidating its possible attenuating effect on obsessional symptoms. Side-effects, though frequent, are not such that treatment need be abandoned nor are they qualitatively different from those of other tricyclic compounds.