The usefulness of Olanzapine plasma concentrations in monitoring treatment efficacy and metabolic disturbances in first-episode psychosis

Introduction The role of Olanzapine therapeutic drug monitoring is controversial. The present study explores the associations of Olanzapine plasma concentrations with clinical response and metabolic side effects in first episode psychosis (FEP) after 2 months of treatment. Methods Forty-seven patients were included. Improvement in clinical symptomatology was assessed using the PANSS. Metabolic assessment included weight, blood pressure, waist circumference, blood glucose, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides. Results The Olanzapine plasma concentrations after 2 months of treatment were positively correlated with weight gain ( r = 0.49, p = 0.003), and a concentration > 23.28 ng/mL was identified as a positive predictor of weight gain (≥ 7%). The Olanzapine concentration to dose (C/D) ratio was positively correlated with the percentage of improvement in the total PANSS ( r = 0.46, p = 0.004), and a C/D ratio > 2.12 was identified as a positive predictor of a good response (percentage of improvement > 30%) after 2 months of treatment. We also identified several factors that could alter Olanzapine pharmacokinetics: gender ( p = 0.03), diagnosis ( p = 0.05), smoking habit ( p = 0.05), and co-medications such as valproic acid ( p = 0.05) and anxiolytics ( p = 0.01). Discussion In conclusion, our results suggest that therapeutic drug monitoring of Olanzapine could be helpful to evaluate therapeutic efficacy and metabolic dysfunction in FEP patients treated with Olanzapine.