Dose-Related Concentrations of Neuroactive/Psychoactive Drugs Expected in Blood of Children and Adolescents

PURPOSE Therapeutic drug monitoring is highly recommended for children and adolescents treated with neurotropic/psychotropic drugs. For interpretation of therapeutic drug monitoring results, drug concentrations (C/D) expected in a "normal" population are helpful to identify pharmacokinetic abnormalities or nonadherence. Using dose-related concentration (DRC) factors obtained from pharmacokinetic data, C/D ranges expected under steady state can be easily calculated by multiplication of DRC by the daily dose. DRC factors, however, are defined only for adults so far. Therefore, it was the aim of this study to estimate DRC factors for children and adolescents and compare them with those of adul…