Introduction:

in Mexico, plasma drug quantitation is used to check toxicity, compliance, and dose titration in treatment with antiepileptic drugs like valproic acid (AVP), but without considering the principles of pharmacokinetics due to the absence of clinical pharmacists into the Health System.

Method:

the present study is a retrospective analysis including the plasmatic concentration data of AVP in pediatric patients of 1 to 15 years old, who had received a reliable diagnosis of epilepsy.

Results:

files of 260 patients were reviewed. It was found that only 56,5% of the patients had serum levels at steady state. The plasma AVP levels were found in sub-therapeutic level in 22% of patients and 15% had toxic levels. The analysis shows that children under five years of age appear as a heterogeneous group for the variables studied.

Conclusions:

due to the lack of recognition of clinical pharmacists in Mexico, we recommend that best clinical outcome can be evaluated only by monitoring pharmacokinetic parameters for variations appearing in individual patients, and not just through trial and error dosing.

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