MEDICAL COMORBIDITIES IN BIPOLAR DISORDER: CLINICAL VALIDATION OF RISK FACTORS AND BIOMARKERS TO IMPROVE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a common, inherited, chronic and relapsing disorder that represents a critical public health problem, due to its prevalence, its high rate of disability and psychiatric and medical comorbidities (MC): these represent a significant additive burden for BD- patients, with great clinical heterogeneity and an urgent need for personalized care and treatment. BIPCOM's overall purpose is to study MC in people with BD and to improve diagnostic and treatment outcomes with a precision medicine approach aimed at three goals: (1) to identify prevalence rates, risk and protective factors and natural history of MC among people with BD, through analyzes of Nordic biobanks and medical registries and a cross-sectional study utilizing existing datasets of patients with BD; (2) to conduct an Exploratory Clinical Study (ECS), to assess the general clinical profile of these patients and quantify the 1-year incidence of specific risk factors for the onset of metabolic syndrome (MetS); (3) to develop a clinical support tool (CST), including a set of recommendations, to support individualized clinical decision-making in BD comorbidity management and improve prevention, early detection and effective treatment, while ensuring the translation of project results into clinical practice. BIPCOM will be implemented through continuous consultations with stakeholders (scientific and patient associations, users and families), to ensure the acceptance and transferability of the results. The successful completion of the project will have a significant impact on the overall health of people with BD, ultimately leading to lower mortality and a reduced incidence of severe disabilities, while providing reliable methods and tools for patient stratification and customized treatments.

Bipolar Disorder (BD) is a common, heritable, chronic, and recurrent disorder that represents a critical public health problem, due to its prevalence, its high degree of disability and psychiatric and medical comorbidities (MC): these represent a significant additive burden for BD patients, with a large clinical heterogeneity and an urgent need for personalised treatment and management. BIPCOM overarching purpose is to study MC in people with BD and to improve diagnostic and treatment outcomes with a precision medicine approach targeting 3 objectives: (1) to identify prevalence rates, risk and protective factors and natural history of MC among subjects with BD, through analyses of the Nordic biobanks and medical registers and a cross- sectional study exploiting existing datasets of patients with BD; (2) to conduct an Exploratory Clinical Study (ECS), to assess the overall clinical profile of these patients and quantify the 1-year incidence of specific risk factors for the onset of metabolic syndrome (MetS); (3) to develop a Clinical Support Tool (CST), including a set of recommendations, to support individualized clinical decision-making in BD comorbidity management and improve prevention, early detection and effective treatment, while ensuring the translation of project results’ into clinical practice. BIPCOM will be implemented through continuous consultations with stakeholders (scientific and patients’ associations, users and families), for ensuring results’ acceptability and transferability. The successful implementation of the project will have a significant impact upon the general health of people with BD, eventually leading to lower mortality rates and reduced incidence of severe disabilities, whilst providing reliable methods and tools for patients’ stratification and personalized treatments.