title: The challenge of predicting response to stabilising lithium treatment. The importance of patient selection.
abstract: Lithium treatment, an approach with well documented efficacy, has recently been losing its treatment value. Lithium continues working, however, for those patients for whom it was proven efficacious; that is, most patients with primary episodic affective disorders. Such responders to lithium prophylaxis can be reliably identified beforehand by a comprehensive clinical assessment. The explanation for the paradox of lithium's lost efficacy lies mostly in the educational bias against a comprehensive patient assessment, and in the shift in diagnostic fashion favouring affective disorders and the treatment methods associated with them in the clinicians' minds.
authors.affiliation: Affective Disorders Program, University of Ottawa, Royal Ottawa Hospital, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Grof
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Alda
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Grof
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fox
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cameron
mesh_terms: D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008094:Lithium / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D019964:Mood Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000517:prevention & control; D011336:Probability; D011379:Prognosis; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000517:prevention & control; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D008094:Lithium