Correlation of the "EMIT" antiepileptic drug assay with a gas liquid chromatographic method.

Many methodologies have been developed for determining anticonvulsant drug levels in human serum. Unfortunately, most procedures are either time consuming or subject to a variety of interferring substances. The "Enzyme Multiplied Immunoassay Technique" (EMIT) system has been evaluated for its speed, sensitivity, accuracy, and precision. When compared with a gas-liquid chromatographic procedure, the EMIT assay appeared to yield results which were statistically comparable for the drugs diphenylhydantoin, phenobarbital, and primidone. The EMIT assay also demonstrated no significant interference when challenged with extraordinarily high levels of potentially cross reacting drugs. Results obtained with the EMIT assay correlated well with GLC data and rank it as an attractive alternative to many of the existing procedures now being used.