[The use of phenobarbital and carbamazepine (finlepsin) in children with epilepsy and cerebral spastic palsy with epileptic syndrome].

Based on examining 20 patients with infantile cerebral paralyses (ICP) and 18 epileptic patients aged 6 to 14 years it has been demonstrated that the effective doses of carbamazepine do not differ (14-27 mg/kg/day) in both the groups, whereas the effective doses of phenobarbital are higher (5.3 mg/kg/day) in ICP patients than in those suffering from epilepsy (3.65 mg/kg/day; P less than 0.05). In this case the blood concentration of both carbamazepine and phenobarbital was lower in ICP patients (5.1 and 23.1 mg/l, respectively, than in epileptic patients (8.2 and 28.8 mg/l). The drug levels in the blood serum were measured by high-effective liquid chromatography. It was assumed that the efficacy of the lower drug concentrations in ICP patients was related to greater permeability of the blood-brain barrier or with higher sensitivity of "epileptized" neurons in them as compared to epileptic patients. The comparison of the doses and blood concentrations may point to more intense biotransformation of the antiepileptic agents in the body of ICP patients than in patients suffering from epilepsy.