Relationship of serum haloperidol levels to clinical response in schizophrenic patients

Theauthors treated 16 outpatients and I inpatient i’ho had diagnoses ofschizophrenia in exacerbation i’ith haloperidol as the sole neuroleptic agent and obtained ratings ofpsychopathology and serum levels of haloperidol. Improvement in schizophrenic symptoms measured by the BriefPsychiatric Rating Scale i’as significantly greater in patients who had mean haloperidol serum concentrations in the range of8-18 ng/ml than in patients whose mean haloperidol serum concentrationfell outside this range. H aloperidol is one of the most widely used antipsy-chotic drugs. High potency and a low ratio of un-wanted effects make haloperidol preferable to many drugs with lower potency and less specific antipsy-chotic action. Relatively few studies have attempted t