Participants recruited for VCU study on premenstrual dysphoric disorder

The Virginia Commonwealth University Mood Disorders Institute is recruiting participants for a national study of a new treatment method for premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe and debilitating form of premenstrual syndrome, or PMS.

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD, affects between 3 percent and 8 percent of women. Many women with PMDD experience mood swings, depression, irritability, anxiety and feelings that life is not worth living, with 15 percent attempting suicide. These symptoms, which occur only premenstrually, are often accompanied by changes in sleep and appetite, changes in energy, breast pain, and bloating — all of which can be severe and lead to disturbances in functioning at home or at work.

PMDD has been treated with antidepressants prescribed for use every day or for half of the menstrual cycle, 14 to 16 days. The current study is applying this use of antidepressants for only the days that women are experiencing symptoms. For the majority of PMDD sufferers, that is about six days. The potential advantages of this strategy include easier scheduling of medication use, less medication exposure, fewer possible side effects and lower cost.

The principal investigator, Susan G. Kornstein, M.D., a professor of psychiatry, and obstetrics and gynecology at VCU, said subjects will take the antidepressant sertraline for six months at the onset of symptoms, or will receive a placebo. The goal is to enroll 300 women among three sites — at Cornell, Yale and Virginia Commonwealth universities.

The study is supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health.

For more information, please call 804-828-5639, or email [email protected].

About VCU and the VCU Medical Center:

Virginia Commonwealth University is the largest university in Virginia and ranks among the top 100 universities in the country in sponsored research. Located on two downtown campuses in Richmond, VCU enrolls nearly 32,000 students in 205 certificate and degree programs in the arts, sciences and humanities. Sixty-five of the programs are unique in Virginia, many of them crossing the disciplines of VCU’s 15 schools and one college. MCV Hospitals and the health sciences schools of Virginia Commonwealth University compose the VCU Medical Center, one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers.