<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder often associated with cognitive impairment and affective, mainly depressive, symptoms. Antipsychotic medication is the primary intervention for stabilization of acute psychotic episodes and prevention of recurrences and relapses in patients with schizophrenia. Typical antipsychotics, the older class of antipsychotic agents, are currently used much less frequently than newer atypical antipsychotics. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of antipsychotic drugs is the specific method of clinical pharmacology, which involves measurement of drug serum concentrations followed by interpretation and good cooperation with the clinician. TDM is a powerful tool that allows tailor-made treatment for the specific needs of individual patients. It can help in monitoring adherence, dose adjustment, minimizing the risk of toxicity and in cost-effectiveness in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. The review provides complex knowledge indispensable to clinical pharmacologists, pharmacists and clinicians for interpretation of TDM results.</p></abstract>

Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder often associated with cognitive impairment and affective, mainly depressive, symptoms. Antipsychotic medication is the primary intervention for stabilization of acute psychotic episodes and prevention of recurrences and relapses in patients with schizophrenia. Typical antipsychotics, the older class of antipsychotic agents, are currently used much less frequently than newer atypical antipsychotics. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) of antipsychotic drugs is the specific method of clinical pharmacology, which involves measurement of drug serum concentrations followed by interpretation and good cooperation with the clinician. TDM is a powerful tool that allows tailor-made treatment for the specific needs of individual patients. It can help in monitoring adherence, dose adjustment, minimizing the risk of toxicity and in cost-effectiveness in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. The review provides complex knowledge indispensable to clinical pharmacologists, pharmacists and clinicians for interpretation of TDM results.

Therapeutic drug monitoring of atypical antipsychotic drugs

Department of Clinical Pharmacology Faculty of Medicine University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

Department of Clinical Pharmacology Department of Laboratory Diagnostics University Hospital Ostrava, Ostrava Czech Republic

Acta Pharmaceutica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Therapeutic drug monitoring of atypical antipsychotic drugs"}

Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder often associated with cognitive impairment and affective, mainly depressive, symptoms. Antipsychotic medication...

Therapeutic drug monitoring of atypical antipsychotic drugs

Published Online: Dec 20, 2014

Page range: 387 - 401

Accepted: Jul 03, 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/acph-2014-0036

© by Milan Grundmann

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.