Antipsychotic Effective for Bipolar Depression in Phase 3 Trial medscape.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from medscape.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
March 2007
A. STEP-BD is the largest, federally-funded treatment study ever conducted for bipolar disorder
1. It is a long-term outpatient study that enrolled 4,360 participants from 22 sites over seven years (1998 to 2005). STEP-BD was designed to find out which treatments, or combinations of treatments, are most effective for treating episodes of depression and mania and for preventing recurrent episodes in people with bipolar disorder. STEP-BD is different from typical clinical trials that test one potential new treatment. It is a broad research program that includes several different studies, each aimed at a different aspect of treatment for the illness.
Multiple treatments, including medications and psychotherapies, currently are available for people with bipolar disorder, but doctors are often uncertain which of these treatments actually work best for specific aspects of the illness.