Mood Stabilizers with Atypical Antipsychotics Reduce Relapses Compared to Mood Stabilizers Alone or with Typical Antipsychotics
An Israeli study reports that treatment with mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotics reduces bipolar relapses compared to treatment with mood stabilizers alone or mood stabilizers combined with typical antipsychotics. The study, by Eldar Hochman and colleagues in the journal Bipolar Disorders, compared one-year hospitalization rates after patients with bipolar disorder were discharged from the hospital following a manic episode. All of the 201 discharged patients were prescribed a mood stabilizer (lithium or valproate), and some were also prescribed an antipsychotic, either atypical or typical.
Those participants who received the combination of a mood stabilizer and an atypical antipsychotic had re-hospitalization rates of 6.3% compared to 24.3% of those who received mood stabilizers alone and 20.6% of those who received mood stabilizers with a typical antipsychotic.
While the study did not determine which treatment is best for ongoing maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder, it does suggest that the combination of mood stabilizers and atypical antipsychotics can reduce hospitalizations during the one-year period following a manic episode.
