Lithium Carbonate and Affective Disorders

Status of Type II vs. Type I Bipolar Disorder: Systematic Review with Meta-Analyses

“…Such conceptualizations support the proposal that the major distinguishing feature of BD2 is a lack of manic or psychotic episodes 11 . Dunner and his collaborators also opined that BD2 patients tend to respond poorly to lithium treatment 11 .…”

“…Such conceptualizations support the proposal that the major distinguishing feature of BD2 is a lack of manic or psychotic episodes 11 . Dunner and his collaborators also opined that BD2 patients tend to respond poorly to lithium treatment 11 . However, subsequent investigations found evidence that lithium has short- and long-term clinical efficacy in BD2 as well as BD1 12–15 .…”

Pharmacotherapy for the Treatment of Acute Bipolar II Depression

“…Several studies have evaluated lithium as a prophylactic treatment for BP II disorder, with mostly positive findings 39–42 , but relatively little date is available evaluating its efficacy as an acute treatment. Recently, Amsterdam and colleagues 43 compared open-label lithium (N=40) to venlafaxine (N=43) as monotherapies for BP II depression.…”

The International College of Neuro-Psychopharmacology (CINP) Treatment Guidelines for Bipolar Disorder in Adults (CINP-BD-2017), Part 2: Review, Grading of the Evidence, and a Precise Algorithm

“…There are a number of historic small studies that investigated the usefulness of lithium in the maintenance treatment of BD (Baastrup et al, 1970; Melia, 1970; Small et al, 1971; Cundall et al, 1972; Hullin et al, 1972; Persson, 1972; Prien et al, 1973b; Prien et al, 1973a; Dunner et al, 1976; Fieve et al, 1976; Fyro and Petterson, 1977; Klein et al, 1981; Christodoulou and Lykouras, 1982; Kane et al, 1982; Margo and McMahon, 1982; Mander and Loudon, 1988; Post et al, 1992). All of them reported positive findings; however, a number of drawbacks including the obsolete methodological approach and the utilization of mixed and small samples make the results of these trials difficult to interpret.…”