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Observational study to evaluate the clinical benefit of lamotrigine add‐on therapy in bipolar patients in a naturalistic treatment setting
Author(s) -
Woo Young Sup,
Bahk WonMyong,
Pae ChiUn,
Jeong JongHyun,
Koo BonHoon,
Jon DukIn,
Lee Jung Goo,
Kim MoonDoo
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
asia‐pacific psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.654
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1758-5872
pISSN - 1758-5864
DOI - 10.1111/appy.12095
Subject(s) - lamotrigine , clinical global impression , bipolar disorder , observational study , mood , medicine , treatment of bipolar disorder , psychology , adverse effect , mood stabilizer , psychiatry , mania , epilepsy , alternative medicine , pathology , placebo
Abstract Introduction The objective of the current study was to assess, in a naturalistic treatment setting, the clinical benefits of lamotrigine add‐on therapy for patients with bipolar disorder. Methods This was an open‐label, prospective, naturalistic, 12‐week, observational study that included 98 bipolar patients treated with lamotrigine add‐on therapy, in addition to mood stabilizers or atypical antipsychotics for 1–4 weeks. The clinical benefits of lamotrigine augmentation were evaluated using the C linical G lobal I mpression‐ C linical B enefit ( CGI‐CB ) S cale, and the C linical G lobal I mpression of B ipolar D isorder‐ S everity scale was used to evaluate the severity of the patients' conditions. Results According to paired t ‐test analyses, the mean CGI‐CB score significantly decreased from 7.2 ± 2.7 at baseline to 3.8 ± 2.5 at W eek 12. Likewise, the mean score for C linical G lobal I mpression of B ipolar D isorder‐ S everity scale significantly decreased from 4.7 ± 0.9 at baseline to 3.1 ± 1.2 at W eek 12. Analysis of covariance showed that the extent to which CGI‐CB scores changed from baseline to W eek 12 did not significantly differ between patients with bipolar I and II disorder. However, the change in CGI‐CB scores between W eeks 4 and 12 was significantly smaller in bipolar II patients than bipolar I patients. A total of 21 (21.4%) patients dropped out during the course of the study, and 30 patients (30.6%) reported 82 adverse events. Discussion The results of this study demonstrated that the use of lamotrigine in patients with bipolar disorder, especially those whom conventional mood stabilizers or antipsychotics are insufficiently effective or intolerable, can be beneficial regardless of the type of bipolar disorder.