Drug metabolism in normal children, lead-poisoned children, and normal adults.

Drug-metabolizing capacities were determined in 10 normal adults and 10 children in the age range from 1 to 8 years. Among the latter, 2 were normal and 8 had biochemical evidence of lead poisoning but no clinical expression of plumbism. There were no differences between the 2 normal children and the 8 lead-poisoned children in their capacities to metabolize two test drugs, antipyrine and phenylbutazone. The mean antipyrine half-life in the whole group of 10 children, 6.63 hr, was significantly lower than the mean half-life of 13.58 obtained in adults. The mean phenylbutazone half-lives in the children and adults, 1.68 and 3.16 days, respectively, also differed significantly. Thus children in the age range studied appear to metabolize drugs at almost twice the rate of adults which differs from findings in animals in which drug-metabolizing capacities increase with maturation. In two other children who showed clinical as well as biochemical manifestations of acute plumbism, antipyrine half-lives were signficantly longer than normal and therapy with EDTA led to restitution toward normal.