Reply to Letter to the Editor "Once-Daily Venlafaxine XR Compared With Fluoxetine in Outpatients With Depression and Anxiety"

Letter to the Editor

Sir: Drs. Judge and Wagner question the conclusion from our study that venlafaxine XR "provides evidence of superiority over fluoxetine." Their main reason for questioning this conclusion is their belief that the statistically significant differences at week 12 between the venlafaxine XR-treated patients and the fluoxetine-treated patients on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (HAM-A) are due to "random noise." Their major justification for this position appears to be that there were no previous statistically significant differences between the 2 drugs at other timepoints.