Anticipatory anxiety in moderately to highly-anxious oral surgery patients as a screening model for anxiolytics: evaluation of alprazolam.

Alprazolam, a benzodiazepine anxiolytic, was evaluated in anxious patients prior to oral surgery. This population represents a possible acute screening model for novel anxiolytic agents. Healthy subjects, preselected for a moderate to high degree of dental anxiety based upon Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale, were enrolled in a three-arm parallel design study and randomly assigned to receive double-blind placebo (N=15), alprazolam 0.