Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:324-327
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Renal glomerular function and long-term lithium therapy
JR Depaulo Jr, EI Correa and DG Sapir
Recently published studies vary widely in the quantitative assessment of
glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in lithium-treated patients. Therefore,
the authors tested 99 lithium-treated manic-depressive patients using
several techniques to measure GFR. Ten of 86 patients who had no history of
renal disease had mildly low creatinine clearance values. Significant
correlations, which were not age-related, between the serum creatinine,
Cockroft creatinine clearance, and duration of lithium therapy suggest a
relationship between chronic lithium therapy and declining GFR. Since serum
creatinine alone was insensitive, the authors recommend the use of
duplicate classical creatinine clearances confirmed by Cockroft values to
monitor GFR during lithium treatment.
