Mood stabilizers and/or antipsychotic drugs for the treatment of manic episodes in bipolar I disorder: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: In clinical practice, it is important to quickly and effectively treat manic episodes in patients with bipolar I disorder. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate an effective therapeutic protocol combining two or more drugs in order to rapidly alleviate symptoms within a short time frame (1 week). In this clinical trial protocol, the antipsychotics quetiapine, olanzapine and ziprasidone and the mood stabilizers valproate, oxcarbazepine and lithium will be used to treat manic episodes to investigate the efficacy and safety of these two types of drugs when used alone or in combination. Methods/Design: This trial will be performed at Guangzhou Brain Hospital, China. A total of 120 patients with bipolar I disorder, exhibiting manic or mixed episodes, will undergo two phases of medication. In the first phase, patients will be randomly assigned to receive oral valproate, oxcarbazepine, lithium, quetiapine, olanzapine or ziprasidone. In the second phase, combination drug treatment will be given, i.e., each patient will receive a combination of mood stabilizers and antipsychotics. Treatment will be given for a total of 6 weeks. Primary outcome measures will include changes in the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) scores and dropout rates. Secondary outcome measures will include disease progression and the efficacy of treatment as evaluated with the Clinical Global Impression Scale, symptom severity as evaluated with the Global Assessment Scale, and anxiety and depression symptoms as evaluated with the Hamilton Anxiety Scale and the Hamilton Depression Scale, respectively. Discussion: This trial will provide preliminary evidence on the comparative efficacy and effectiveness of the commonly prescribed drugs, with attempts at optimizing pharmacological treatments of manic and mixed episodes. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01893229; registered on 2 July 2013.