Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T12:53:41.046Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lithium therapy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

I. N. Ferrier ,
S. P. Tyrer  and
A. J. Bell
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Since the introduction of lithium therapy 30 years ago it has become a major weapon in psychiatrists' armamentarium. It is the drug of first choice for the prevention of recurrent mood disorders, and it is estimated that about one person in every thousand people in Britain receives lithium at any one time. It therefore behoves doctors to be familiar with its use. This article is not a comprehensive account of the pharmacology of lithium (for this the reader is referred to Johnson (1987) and Peet & Pratt (1993)) but concentrates on its clinical use in practice and some less well known, but important, phenomena.

Type
Research Article
Information
Advances in Psychiatric Treatment , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , March 1995 , pp. 102 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 1995 

References

Aronson, J.K. & Reynolds, D. J. M. (1992) Lithium. British Medical Journal, 305, 1273–1276.Google Scholar
Bell, A. J. & Ferrier, I. N. (1995) Lithium – induced neurotoxicity at therapeutic levels – an aetiological review. Lithium, in press.Google Scholar
Birch, N. J., Grof, P., Hullin, R. P. et al (1993) Lithium prophylaxis: Proposed guidelines for good clinical practice. Lithium, 4, 225–230.Google Scholar
Bochetta, A., Bernardi, F., Burrai, C. et al (1992) The course of thyroid abnormalities during lithium treatment: a two year follow-up study. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 86, 38–41.Google Scholar
De Montigny, C., Cournoyer, G., Morissette, R. et al (1983) Lithium carbonate addition to tricyclic antidepressant-resistant unipolar depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 40, 1327–1334.Google Scholar
Gelenberg, A. J., Kane, J. M., Keller, M. B. et al (1989) Comparison of standard and low serum levels of lithium for maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder. New England Journal of Medicine, 321, 1489–1493.Google Scholar
Goodwin, G. M. (1994) Recurrence of mania after lithium withdrawal. British Journal of Psychiatry, 164, 149–152.Google Scholar
Grof, P., Zis, A. P., Goodwin, F. E. et al (1978) Patterns of recurrence in bipolar affective illness. Scientific Proceedings of American Psychiatric Association, 179, 120.Google Scholar
Hopkins, H. S. & Gelenberg, A. J. (1994) Treatment of bipolar disorder, how far have we come? Psychopharmacology Bulletin, 30, 27–38.Google Scholar
Jefferson, J. W. (1990) Lithium; the present and the future. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 51 (suppl), 4–8.Google Scholar
Johnson, F. N. (1987) Depression and mania: modern lithium therapy. Oxford: IRL Press.Google Scholar
Lee, S., Chow, C. C., Wing, Y. K. et al (1992) Thyroid abnormalities during chronic lithium therapy in Hong Kong Chinese: a controlled study. Journal of Affective Disorders, 26, 173–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, D. H., Carter, R. A., Burns, B. H. et al (1985) A prospective study of the effect of lithium on thyroid function and on the prevalence of antithyroid antibodies. Psychological Medicine, 15, 55–61.Google Scholar
Peet, M. & Pratt, J. P. (1993) Lithium. Current status in psychiatric disorder. Drugs, 46, 7–17.Google Scholar
Perry, P. J., Alexander, B., Prince, R. A. et al (1986) The utility of a single-point dosing protocol for predicting steady-state lithium levels. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 401–405.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Post, R. M. (1993) Issues in the long-term management of bipolar affective illness. Psychiatric Annals, 23, 86–93.Google Scholar
Price, L. H., Charney, D. S. & Henninger, G. R. (1986) Variability of response to lithium augmentation in refractory depression. American Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 1387–1392.Google Scholar
Prien, R. F., Caffey, E. M. & Klett, C. J. (1972) Relationship between serum lithium level and clinical response in acute mania treated with lithium. British Journal of Psychiatry, 120, 189–192.Google Scholar
Schou, M. (1984) Long lasting neurological sequelae after lithium intoxication. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 70, 594–602.Google Scholar
Schou, M. (1988) Effects of long-term lithium treatment on kidney function; an overview. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 22, 287–296.Google Scholar
Sheean, G. L. (1993) Lithium neurotoxicity. Clinical and Experimental Neurology, 14, 112–127.Google Scholar
Small, J. G. & Millstein, V. (1990) Lithium interactions; lithium and electroconvulsive therapy. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, 10, 346–350.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tyrer, S. P. (1994) Lithium and treatment of aggressive behaviour. European Neuropsychopharmacology, 4, 234–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyrer, S. P., Shopsin, B. & Aronson, M. (1983) Dangers of reducing lithium. British Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 427.Google Scholar
Verdoux, H. & Bourgeois, M. L. (1990) A case of lithium neurotoxicity with irreversible cerebellar syndrome. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, 178, 761–762.Google Scholar
Vestergaard, P., Poulstrup, I., Schou, M. (1988) Studies on a lithium cohort, 3; tremor, weight gain, diarrhoea, psychological complaints. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 78, 434–441.Google Scholar
Wilson, R., McKillop, J. H., Crocket, G. T. et al (1991) The effect of lithium therapy on parameters thought to be involved in the development of auto-immune thyroid disease. Clinical Endocrinology, 34, 357–361.Google Scholar
Wright, B. A. & Jarrett, D. B. (1991) Lithium and calcium channel blockers: possible neurotoxicity. Biological Psychiatry, 30, 635636.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.