Browsing by Author "Haile Bisrat"
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Item Blood Level Determin a t ions and Pharmacokinetic Stud ies of Anticonvulsants i n Ethiopian Epileptics(Addis Ababa Universty, 1987-06) Haile Bisrat; Dagne Ermias (PhD)A gas chromatographic method was employed to monitor plasma levels of phenytoin and phenobarbital in 101 Ethiopian epileptic patients who were on chronic drug treatment and kinetics and plasma level-response relationship was studied. 40% of the patients were on single drug treatment while the remaining were taking both phenytoin and phenobarbital . A very low correlation between dose and plasma level was observed and there was high variation among individuals. Although 86% of the patients were receiving 300 mg of phenytoin per day , some patients showed plasma levels as low as 5|ig / ml others as high as 60 pg/ ml . and ! ! About 70% of patients were seizure-free at the range of 10-20 pg /ml phenytoin levels. However the best range for maximum seizure control in this study was 20-30 p g / ml. At lower levels, that is below 10 pg /ml , and at higher levels above 30 jug/ml , the seizures were poorly controlled. The therapeutic range of phenobarbital for optimum control of seizure was found to be comparable with that of phenytoin ( 20-30 pg /ml ). The kinetics of phepytoin is best described by Michaelis- Menten kinetics. The most important parameters K and V m max were estimated and found to be 6.5 mg /lt and 6.9 mg /kg / d respectively. The maximum metabolic capacity, vmax » for