Relationship between Plasma Concentrations of Haloperidol and Its Metabolite, Reduced Haloperidol, and Clinical Response in Schizophrenia

정신분열증 환자에서의 Haloperidol 및 Reduced Haloperidol의 혈장농도와 임상반응과의 상관성

The relationship between the plasma haloperidol (HP) concentration and clinical response, and the effects of its active metabolite, reduced haloperidol (RH) on clinical response of HP were investigated in schizophrenic patients. In clinical study I, with 17 schizophrenic patients (male 8, fermale 9) who were administered with three different fixed doses of HP (15, 30 and 50 mg/day) for 3 weeks, the concentrations of HP and RH in plasma and blood and clinical response had been checked before and every week during the study. The clinical response was evaluated by the method of brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS), and relative improvement of clinical response based on baseline BPRS (before drug treatment) was calculated. The concentrations of HP and RH in plasma and blood were assayed by HPLC. In clinical study II, the plasma RH/HP concentration ratios were checked in 11 patients who were administered with high doses of HP, over 60 mg a day, because of the poor clinical response at usual doses of HP. Plasma HP concentration and relative improvement of BPRS at 3 week in schizophrenic patients showed a 'curvilinear' relationship, and the clinical response was improved relatively over 50% based on the baseline BPRS in the range of $5{\sim}57\;ng/ml $ of HP in plasma. Also, the plasma RH concentrations were increased nonlinearly as the plasma HP concentration increased, and in high plasma HP concentration, over 30 ng/mI, clinical response gradually decreased, while the plasma RH/HP concentration ratio increased nonlinearly. Blood partition coefficients of HP and RH were not changed according to daily HP dose and duration of drug therapy. From these results, it is noted that the higher plasma RH/HP concentration ratio, resulted from the accumulation of RH as HP concentration increased, might explain the 'curvilinear' decrease of HP clinical response.