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World J Psychiatry. Aug 19, 2025; 15(8): 106125
Published online Aug 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i8.106125
Early diagnosis of bipolar disorder
Peng Cui, Dong-Yu Han, Cheng-Hao Yang
Peng Cui, Dong-Yu Han, Cheng-Hao Yang, General Psychiatry Ward, Tianjin Anding Hospital, Tianjin 300222, China
Co-first authors: Peng Cui and Dong-Yu Han.
Author contributions: Cui P and Han DY contributed to the literature screening and original draft together; Yang CH contributed to the funding acquisition, conceptualization, writing-review and editing; All authors have reviewed and approved the final version.
Supported by Research Plan Project of Tianjin Municipal Education Commission, No. 2022KJ264.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Cheng-Hao Yang, PhD, Chief Physician, Director, General Psychiatry Ward, Tianjin Anding Hospital, No. 13 Liulin Road, Hexi District, Tianjin 300222, China. yangchh@tjmhc.com
Received: February 17, 2025
Revised: April 12, 2025
Accepted: June 6, 2025
Published online: August 19, 2025
Processing time: 173 Days and 0.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe mood disorder with delayed diagnosis, leading to worsened outcomes such as frequent mood episodes and comorbidities. Early diagnosis remains challenging, despite advances in biomarkers, neuroimaging, and genetics. This review explores these advances and highlights issues like symptom heterogeneity, delayed diagnosis, low biomarker specificity, and the evolving nature of BD. A deeper understanding of BD pathology, more specific biomarkers, and multiomics validation in homogeneous cohorts could lead to significant breakthroughs in early BD diagnosis.