Impact of lithium therapy on core psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia.

The authors have previously reported that a sub-group of schizophrenic-like patients respond favorably to lithium therapy: furthermore, psychotic patients who respond to lithium demonstrate appreciable improvement during the first seven days of treatment. The present study investigated which symptoms of schizophrenia improved quickly during lithium treatment. We found that patients who do respond to lithium show significant improvement in the core symptoms of psychosis--hallucinations, delusions and formal thought disorder--during the first seven days of treatment, thus allowing early identification of 88 per cent of schizophrenic patients who ultimately respond to lithium and 91 per cent of those who do not.