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To gain insight into current prescribing practices for patients with bipolar disorder, these researchers examined 2 years of data from national databases of commercial and Medicare claims. The study was supported in part by a pharmaceutical company.
Of 4,211,218 beneficiaries with continuous pharmaceutical coverage, 12,237 had a new diagnosis of bipolar disorder, 7760 of whom received a new prescription for a single psychotropic agent. (Other patients had either no prescription or initial polytherapy.) Monotherapies included antidepressants (50%), anticonvulsants with presumed mood-stabilizing properties (17%), benzodiazepines or other anxiolytics (15%), antipsychotics (11%, usually atypicals), and lithium (8%).
Patients tended to stay on lit…