ABSTRACT
Pharmacotherapy of bipolar disorders is a complex and rapidly evolving field. The development of new treatments has helped refine concepts of illness subtypes and generated important new management options. Although the mood stabilizers lithium, carbamazepine (CBZ), valproate (VPA), and lamotrigine (LTG) are the primary medications for bipolar disorders, antipsychotics, antidepressants, anxiolytic/hypnotics, and other anticonvulsants are commonly combined with mood stabilizers in clinical settings. These diverse medications have varying pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, drug-drug interactions, and adverse effects; thus offering not only new therapeutic opportunities, but also a variety of new potential pitfalls. Therefore, clinicians are challenged with integrating the complex data regarding efficacy spectra, described elsewhere in this volume, with the pharmacological properties described in this chapter, in efforts to provide safe, effective, state-of-the-art pharmacotherapy for patients with bipolar disorders.
