Pharmacokinetics: time-dependent changes--autoinduction of carbamazepine epoxidation.

Drugs labeled with stable isotopes have been useful to study time-dependent changes in kinetics. Early studies suggested that carbamazepine (CBZ) may induce its own metabolism, but this could not be proved until tetradeuterium-labeled CBZ (CBZ-D4) was synthesized and then given to patients. CBZ-D4 was administered to three children during long-term treatment of epilepsy with CBZ. After 17 to 32 days of treatment, the plasma clearance of CBZ-D4 was doubled, but during the next four months, there was no further increase, indicating that autoinduction was complete within one month. Two patients with chronic alcoholism were treated with CBZ for five days. Half of the first dose of 600 mg was comprised of CBZ-D4. The half-life of this CBZ-D4 dose in the two patients (20 and 26 hr, respectively) was similar to the post-steady-state half-life of CBZ (23 hr in both patients) measured later. A single dose of CBZ given one week after the last maintenance dose had a longer half-life (46 and 45 hr, respectively), which probably is close to the disposition of the drug before starting the treatment with CBZ. This shows that autoinduction of CBZ metabolism was completed during the very first doses of CBZ. Autoinduction also disappeared rapidly after stopping the treatment. We have shown that it is mainly the epoxide-diol pathway that is induced, both during autoinduction and after induction with other antiepileptic agents.