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Reassessing Carbamazepine in Bipolar Disorders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Terence A. Ketter
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Extract

This discussion focuses on the historical trends of carbamazepine in the treatment of acute mania, acute bipolar depression, and as maintenance treatment for bipolar disorder. Clinical implications of efficacy, safety, tolerability, and drug interactions associated with carbamazepine are discussed as well.

Important progress in bipolar disorders therapeutics began in the 1970s with lithium and the conventional antipsychotics, and continued in the 1980s with carbamazepine, in the 1990s with divalproex, and in the 2000s with lamotrigine and the introduction of the atypical antipsychotics. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has been used throughout these periods and still has a place in bipolar disorder, especially for severe, treatment-resistant, and very acute cases.

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Type
Symposium Monograph Supplement
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 10 , Issue S1: Reassessing Carbamazepine in the Treatment of Bipolar Disorder Clinical Implications of New Data , June 2005, pp. 6 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005

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