Is it time to have another look at lithium maintenance therapy in bipolar disorder?

1. Bipolar disorder is typically a chronic disease entailing an episodes co urse, whereby psychiatric status alternates between periods of normal funct ioning and periods of illness. Lithium is well established and approved for the treatment of bipolar disorder. However, its efficacy in practice is no t as great as expected. This retrospective record study was undertaken to d etermine the efficacy of lithium in bipolar disorders. 2. 48 patients who met DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria for bipolar I disorder and had been admitted once before lithium therapy and twice or more after that, were included in this study. 3. No significant difference in length between episode (frequency) was obse rved before and after lithium maintenance therapy. In addition, the percent ages of manic episode after Lithium therapy were much greater than before t hat. 4. The results indicate that it is worth re-examining the efficacy of lithi um in bipolar disorders.