Maria Skokou, Eleni A Karavia, Zoi Drakou, Vassiliki Konstantinopoulou, Christina-Anna Kavakioti, Philippos Gourzis, Kyriakos E Kypreos, Ourania Andreopoulou
Clozapine is the gold standard for treatment-resistant schizophrenia. Serious and even life-threatening adverse effects, mostly granulocytopenia, myocarditis, and constipation, are of great clinical concern and constitute a barrier to prescribing clozapine, thus depriving many eligible patients of a lifesaving treatment option. Interestingly, clozapine presents variable pharmacokinetics affected by numerous parameters, leading to significant inter- and intra-individual variation. Therefore, therapeutic drug monitoring of plasma clozapine levels confers a significant benefit in everyday clinical practice by increasing the confidence of the prescribing doctor to the drug and the adherence of the patient to the treatment, mainly by ensuring effective treatment and limited dose-related side effects...
July 1, 2022: Pharmaceuticals