Abstract
Background. Patients with bipolar disorder do not respond to the same therapy in the same way. This potentially necessitates the trial of various treatment modalities in a patient until the illness can be successfully controlled.
Methods. Medical histories from 187 patients were reviewed to obtain information on efficacy when patients were switched from their initial drug therapy—immediate-release (IR) or extended-release (ER) carbamazepine (CBZ) tablets, valproic acid, lamotrigine, lithium, olanzapine, and oxcarbazepine—to beaded CBZ extended-release capsules (CBZ-ERC) (Shire, Wayne, PA, USA). Clinical Global Impression–Severity and Clinical Global Impression–Improvement scores were used to assess severity of illness, and response and relapse rates, respectively.
Results. The overall response rate was 79.7%. The greatest percentage of responders to CBZ-ERC treatment was seen in patients originally on lithium (90.5%), followed by those initially treated with oxcarbazepine (84.8%), olanzapine (81.5%), lamotrigine (77.8%), valproic acid (75.4%), and IR or ER CBZ tablets (74.2%). The overall relapse rate was 38.2%. Patients on lithium had the highest relapse rate (52.6%), followed by those on olanzapine (50.0%), valproic acid (34.9%), IR or ER CBZ tablets (34.8%), oxcarbazepine (32.1%), and lamotrigine (28.6%). Adverse events were minimal, with nausea, dizziness, and somnolence being the most frequent.
Conclusions. The encouraging treatment response and adverse event profile observed in this retrospective analysis suggest that CBZ-ERC is an efficacious agent for the treatment of patients with bipolar disorder switched from other psychotropic agents.
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Notes
aAdverse events occurring in greater than 2% of the population are listed.