Lamotrigine bipolar affective disorder

Lithium salts are ineffective for prophylaxis of bipolar affective disorder in around 35% of patients and cause several unwanted effects. The search for alternatives has produced drugs that are more familiar as anticonvulsants, notably carbamazepine and sodium valproate, and possibly lamotrigine. 

Suppes T, Brown ES, McElroy SL, et al. Lamotrigine for the treatment of bipolar disorder a clinical case series. J Affect Disord 1999 53 95-98. 

Suppes T, Marangell LB, Bernstein IH, Kelly DI, Fischer EG, Zboyan HA, Snow DE, Martinez M, A1 Jurdi R, Shivakumar G, Sureddi S, Gonzalez R. A single blind comparison of hthium and lamotrigine for the treatment of bipolar II depression. J Affect Disord 2008 111 (2-3) 334-43. 

Psychiatric Psychiatric problems that can occur in patients using lamotrigine for mental disorders (mainly bipolar disorder) or epilepsy have been reviewed [151 ]. The main features of these psychiatric adverse effects are affective switches, full acute psychotic episodes, and hallucinations. 

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