Serum level of phenobarbital or/and diphenylhydantoin in epileptics with some preexisting serum lipid alterations. Correlations with the treatment efficiency in epilepsy.

In a group of 38 epileptics, 13.1 % had alterations of serum lipids before administration of antiepileptic therapy. An inverse relation was found between the level of serum lipids and that of drug concentration : on minimal daily doses, phenobarbital attained disproportionally high concentrations in a patient with hypocholesterolemia + hypotriglyceridemia, while on large daily doses phenobarbital and/or diphenylhydantoin attained low concentrations in the patients with hypercholesterolemia alone or accompanied by hypertriglyceridemia.