Prediction of optimal lithium doses for Taiwanese psychiatric patients

Standard dosing regimens with lithium usually require significant time before the optimal serum concentration is achieved.

The present study compares a new method (Method 1) with two existing ones (Methods 2 and 3) for dosing of individual patients with lithium, to more rapidly achieve optimum concentrations. Thirty patients, who were on lithium therapy and who met the inclusion criteria, were evaluated.

The correlation coefficient between true and expected concentrations were 0.518 (P < 0.01), 0.555 (P < 0.01) and 0.424 (P = 0.019) respectively. The mean +/- standard deviation of the difference from the expected concentrations of three methods were 0.02 +/- 0.20 mEq/L, 0.31 +/- 0.22 and -0.27 +/- 0.25 respectively.

Method 1 was the least biased and most accurate among three methods for predicting the optimal therapeutic lithium dose in Taiwanese psychiatric patients.