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. 1978 Jun 17;1(6127):1583–1586. doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.6127.1583

High incidence of a concentration-dependent skin reaction in children treated with phenytoin.

J T Wilson, B Höjer, G Tomson, A Rane, F Sjöqvist
PMCID: PMC1605360  PMID: 148936

Abstract

A particularly high incidence of rash was seen in children with epilepsy treated with phenytoin. Ten children with untreated epilepsy were therefore included in a prospective study and given either 3 (group 1) or 6 (group 2) mg of phenytoin/kg body weight/day for five days followed by 6 mg/kg body weight/day for both groups. Four of the five children in group 2 compared with only one of the five in group 1 developed a rash seven to 12 days after the start of treatment. Patients with rashes had significantly higher plasma phenytoin concentrations. Whenever the phenytoin concentration was higher than 14 micromol/l on day 5 a rash occurred. These findings indicate that the generalised skin reaction is caused by a high body burden of phenytoin, which results from either a high load of the drug or a low clearance rate.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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