Background: venlafaxine has been available for use as an antidepressant in the United States for a decade.
Objective: Comprehensive reviews of venlafaxine have been published elsewhere; thus, this update focuses on newer issues of treatment remission in depression, treatment-resistant depression, and extended-release venlafaxine for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).
Methods: Relevant clinical literature from 1993 through 2003 was identified from database searches of MEDLINE and International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and from manual searches of reference lists of the identified papers.