High correlation between serum and cerebrospinal fluid olanzapine concentrations in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder medicating with oral olanzapine as the only antipsychotic drug.

The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between steady state serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of olanzapine (OLA) and its metabolite 4'-N-desmethylolanzapine (DMO) in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder treated with oral OLA as the only antipsychotic drug. The influence of smoking, gender, age, as well as polymorphisms in cytochrome P450 CYP2D6, CYP1A2, and ABCB1 genes on the serum and CSF drug levels was also analyzed. Thirty-seven white outpatients (10 smokers and 27 nonsmokers) were included. From 29 of them, CSF was collected successfully. A strong correlation (Spearman rank correlation [rs] = 0.93; P < 0.05) was found between serum and CSF concentrations of OLA and a somewhat weaker correlation (rs = 0.5; P < 0.05) between those of DMO. The CSF concentrations of OLA and DMO were on average 12% and 16% of those in serum. Extensive metabolizers of CYP2D6 had higher (P < 0.05) daily doses than poor metabolizers when the influence of smoking was taken into account. Smokers had lower (P < 0.01) concentration-to-dose ratios of OLA in serum (mean, 2.23 ng/mL per mg vs 3.32 ng/mL per mg) and CSF (0.27 ng/mL per mg vs 0.41 ng/mL per mg) than nonsmokers. The concentration-to-dose ratio for serum DMO decreased with increasing age (rs = -0.41; P < 0.05). Carriers of ABCB1 1236T/2677T/3435T haplotype had higher serum (mean, 37.7 ng/mL vs 22.5 ng/mL; P = 0.035) and CSF (4.7 ng/mL vs 2.6 ng/mL; P = 0.018) OLA concentrations than patients without this haplotype. The present study shows a strong correlation between serum and CSF concentrations of OLA, indicating that concentrations of OLA in serum reflect those in CSF.