Antiepileptic drugs: a medical challenge.

Therapy of epilepsy poses problems for physicians because the drugs differ in their bioavailability and patients differ in their responses to the drugs. As these differences lead to wide variations in absorption and therefore in plasma drug levels, dosages have to be individualized. Knowing the kinetic profile and monitoring plasma levels of antiepileptic drugs during therapy have been useful, but other considerations come into play, such as patient compliance, pregnancy, age, and drug interactions. The synthesis of new antiepileptic drugs that will reach a steady state more rapidly and with less risk of toxicity will depend on the development of experimental models that may more accurately predict the specificity of drugs for a given convulsive disorder.