Lithium, LAI Antipsychotics Found Best to Prevent Rehospitalization in Patients With Bipolar Disorder

Lithium appears to be the most effective medication for preventing rehospitalization for any reason among patients with bipolar disorder and should be the first-line of treatment, according to areport inJAMA Psychiatry. The study also revealed that long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics were associated with substantially better outcomes compared with identical oral antipsychotics.“When a patient with bipolar disorder uses an LAI, the patient’s risk of relapse leading to psychiatric hospitalization as well as all-cause hospitalization owing to mental or somatic illness is about 30% lower than during time periods when the same patient uses an identical oral antipsychotic,” Marrku Lähteenvuo, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Eastern Finland and colleagues wrote. “Although more research is needed to support the notion, LAIs might offer a safe and effective option for relapse prevention in bipolar disorder for patients for whom lithium is not suitable."L ähteenvuo and colleagues used Finnish national registry databases to examine the risk of psychiatric, cardiovascular, and all-cause hospitalization from January 1987 through December 2012 in patients in Finland who had been hospitalized for bipolar disorder. These databases include information on i ncidences, duration, and reasons for rehospitalization as well as information on reimbursed medications dispensed from pharmacies.Among a cohort of more than 18,000 patients, 9,721 patients (54.0%) had at least one psych...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: bipolar disorder JAMA Psychiatry LAI lithium long-acting injectable Marrku L ähteenvuo rehospitalization risperidone Source Type: research