Clinical pharmacy
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A repeated one-point pharmacokinetic model of predicting lithium carbonate doses was evaluated. Six psychiatric inpatients with normal renal function who required lithium therapy were given two 600-mg lithium carbonate test doses 12 hours apart. Serum lithium concentrations were determined 11 hours after each test dose. ⋯ The mean +/- S. D. measured and predicted minimum steady-state serum concentrations for all patients were 1.03 +/- 0.06 meq/liter and 0.97 +/- 0.08 meq/liter, respectively. While further studies are needed to evaluate the method, the repeated one-point pharmacokinetic model provided accurate predictions of lithium carbonate doses in these patients.