Conditions: Phenytoin Toxicity
Keywords: Anticonvulsants Toxicology multidose charcoal phenytoin
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 17
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
Phenytoin is a medicine used to treat seizures. If too much is taken, patients have ill effects including sleepiness, unsteady gait, and eye problems. The amount of drug in their system can be measured in their blood. Charcoal is a medicine that can absorb phenytoin. We want to see if giving multiple doses of charcoal will quicken the removal of phenytoin from the blood. This is theorized to occur as charcoal absorbs phenytoin from across the intestines and then is secreted in the stool. Patients will be selected to receive either charcoal in multiple doses or no charcoal and their serum levels will be drawn repeatedly to follow their level. The different groups will then be compared to see if multidose charcoal does indeed increase the elimination of phenytoin from the body.

Detailed description:
See above

Arms:
arm 1: Patients will receive 50 grams of activated charcoal by mouth every 4 hours until phenytoin levels drop below 25 ug/cc arm 2: Will not receive activated charcoal. Serum levels will be followed.

Interventions: intervention 1: Activated Charcoal
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 50 grams by mouth every 4 hours until serum phenytoin level is less than 25.

Protocol document: