| Sub-title | |
| Authors | J Mifsud H Shabbi D Soler |
| Abstract | Aims: Therapeutic drug monitoring is important for drugs that exhibit inter-individual variability in pharmacokinetics, and where drug-drug interactions, concurrent disease or age alters the kinetics of that drug. This is of particular importance in a chronic neurological condition such as epilepsy. In this study, the value of therapeutic drug monitoring for lamotrigine, a novel antiepileptic drug, was investigated in a group of paediatric patients. Methods: Plasma lamotrigine levels at steady state (mean S.D.) in epileptic patients were thus measured using this novel analysis. Results: A statistically significant difference (P < 0.05) was obtained between valproate co-medication group and carbamazepine co-medication group, between valproate co-medication group and clonazepam comedication group, and between valproate co-medication group and valproate, clonazepam co-medication group. Conclusion: Overall, the results thus obtained from the studies in this research, indicate the important need to streamline pharmacokinetic data for the use of antiepileptic drugs in children. Most physicians use ad hoc reasoning in the design of therapeutics and dosage regimens for these drugs in children. Our studies have shown that there are too many variables that could influence the plasma drug concentrations obtained. There is still a lack of satisfactory models and software packages that will allow accurate predictions of drug levels with these drugs in these populations. |
Published in: | |
| Journal | Malta Medical Journal |
| Volume | 15 Issue 1-2/suppl. 2003 |
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| Key words | lamotrigine, paediatrics, therapeutic monitoring |