Comparative Effectiveness Study for Bipolar Disorder

• Clinical Global Impression-Efficacy Index (CGI-EI) [ Time Frame: 6 Months ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
  The CGI-EI integrates benefits and harms and yields a score that can be compared across interventions.
  
  

• Risk of cardiovascular disease - Framingham Risk Score [ Time Frame: 6 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: Yes ]
  The Framingham risk score captures the classic risk factors for cardiovascular disease, including age, sex, systolic blood pressure, total and high density lipoprotein cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, and smoking. The Framingham risk score is used as a simple predictive tool to determine 10-year (short term) risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CHD).
  
  
• Longitudinal Interval Follow up Evaluation Range of Impaired Functioning Tool (LIFE-RIFT) [ Time Frame: 6 months ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
  The LIFE-RIFT asses the extent to which psychopathology has impacted current functionging in work, household chores, interpersonal relationships with partner, family, and friends, recreational activities, and life, satisfaction, leisure activities and social relationships.
  
  

Mood stabilizers, medications that prevent future mood episodes, are the foundation for treatment of bipolar disorder. While all published bipolar disorder treatment guidelines recommend that pharmacotherapy should include mood stabilizers for long-term maintenance treatment, no randomized comparative effectiveness studies have examined the real-world advantages and disadvantages of the newer second generation antipsychotic (SGA) mood stabilizers compared to the classic mood stabilizers, such as lithium (Li). No studies have looked at the effectiveness of SGAs compared to mood stabilizers when used in the context of other medications required to manage bipolar patients, since bipolar disorder patients take a median of 3 medications for optimal outcomes. Quetiapine (QTP) is the most extensively studied, broadly efficacious and the most widely prescribed SGA for bipolar disorder. The classic mood stabilizer Li has the largest evidence base for treating bipolar disorder, but has been largely supplanted by the SGAs.

Thus, this study compares symptomatic benefits and adverse effect burden between a QTP foundation with adjunctive personalized treatments (QTP+APT) and a mood stabilizer foundation consisting of Li with APT (Li+APT). APT will include any other medication needed with the following exceptions: the QTP+APT cannot receive Li and the Li+APT group cannot receive an antipsychotic. If, however, participants clinically require a switch to, or the addition of any other SGA or mood stabilizer, then those medications can be added as a rescue strategy that will be carefully recorded. Consistent with an effectiveness trial, participants will be able to continue in the study if they require a rescue treatment. The specific plan is a randomized, open, two arm, comparative effectiveness study of QTP+APT vs. Li+APT treatment for 6 months across 10 sites.

In summary, this comparative effectiveness study compares fundamentally different acute and continuation treatments for bipolar disorder. The investigators address the key question of whether to use a prototypical mood stabilizing SGA (i.e., QTP) or the classical mood stabilizer Li as the foundational treatment in the context of other necessary adjunctive personalized treatments (APT).