Aim of the work: To determine the relation between Risperidone plasma concentration and its efficacy in patients with schizophrenia to assess the value of therapeutic drug monitoring in clinical practice.
Method: In February 2020, a search was conducted in the period from 2000 to 2020 using Google scholar, Pubmed and Science Direct as search engine. The key words used in this search were Risperidone, plasma concentration, schizophrenia. Articles were selected for inclusion in this search if they involved a test for the correlation between plasma concentration and efficacy.
Results: Limited number of studies was found. Among 14 studies, 10 yielded no correlation between Risperidone plasma levels and its efficacy while 4 studies showed positive results. To investigate the relation between Risperidone plasma concentration and clinical response, the most common tools used are HPLC for determination of plasma concentration and PANSS for assessment of clinical response.
Conclusion: The majority of studies showed no correlation and therapeutic drug monitoring of Risperidone is still unclear. Further research is needed in this area.