Renal side effects of lithium: The importance of the serum lithium level

✍ Scribed by Per Vestergaard; Klaus Thomsen

• Book ID: 104771341
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1981
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 143 KB
• Volume: 72
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0033-3158
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00431657

✦ Synopsis

Patients given long-term treatment with lithium often develop an impairment of renal water reabsorption which may lead to clinically significant adverse reactions. A convenient measure of this impairment may be obtained using the ratio of urine volume (V) divided by lithium clearance (CLi). When data from a large group of patients were recalculated, this ratio showed a statistically significant correlation with the serum lithium level. This finding supports the suggestion that patients might advantageously be maintained at lower serum levels than those commonly employed.