52 Percent Of Newly Diagnosed Bipolar Disorder Patients Receive Antidepressant Drugs In First-Line Treatment

Main Category: Bipolar
Also Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry;  Primary Care / General Practice;  Mental Health
Article Date: 16 Sep 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms focusing on pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that 52.3 percent of newly diagnosed bipolar disorder patients are prescribed antidepressant drugs first line.

The new report entitled Treatment Algorithms in Bipolar Disorder finds that this high preponderance of early-line antidepressant use stems from primary care physician prescribing. Surveyed primary care physicians specify selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)-including Forest Laboratories' Lexapro-as a favored first-line treatment choice for patients with bipolar disorder I with acute depression (51 percent of physicians), bipolar disorder II with acute depression without hypomania (52 percent of physicians) and bipolar disorder II with acute depression with hypomania (46 percent of physicians).

"The number of primary care physicians who are diagnosing and treating bipolar patients has been on the rise in the past few years, but they follow a different treatment pattern than surveyed psychiatrists," said Madhuri Borde, Ph.D., analyst at Decision Resources. "Nearly half of the patients taking SSRIs first line receive these drugs as a monotherapy, despite guideline recommendations to give bipolar patients presenting with depression an antimanic first line."

The report also finds that GlaxoSmithKline's Lamictal is the leading single-agent in first-, second- and third-line therapy amassing 18 percent, 13.8 percent and 16.3 percent patient share in each line of therapy, respectively. Lamictal's patient share in early lines of therapy is driven by psychiatrists' belief that this therapy is effective for patients with bipolar depression.

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