Lecturer, Deptt. of Pharmacology, Govt. Medical College, Srinagar-190 010, Jammu and Kashmir, India.

Sr. Resident, Medicine, Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir 190011, India.

Professor, Pharmacology, M.M.Medical College, Haryana, India.
Lithium ,Therapeutic drug monitoring ,Manic depressive psychosis ,Milli equivalent per litre ,Optimization ,

Lithium remains a mainstay of treatment for bipolar disorders but dose individualization, measured of serum drug concentrations and monitoring for adverse drug reactions are vital in order to maximize therapeutic response as the patient has to take the drug for rest of his life for treatment and prophylaxes. Lithium has a narrow therapeutic index (0.4-1.2meq/L) and drug interactions, changes in diet and fluid intake, illness and compliance can all markedly affect serum drug concentrations, reducing therapeutic response or causing toxicity. The method of estimation is simple and accurate by flame photometry. The study was carried out from the sample of 16,679 consisting of 6,989 males (41.9%) and 9690 (58.09%). This data shows that physicians prescribe medicines about which they should know that narrow therapeutic index drug needs vigilance and optimizations while titrating the dose as per the levels so that the level is maintained within the therapeutic range.

6 , 1 , 2016