Am J Psychiatry 1980; 137:1414-1415
Copyright © 1980 by American Psychiatric Association
Pharmacokinetic study of lorazepam overdosage
MD Allen, DJ Greenblatt, Y LaCasse and RI Shader
The authors describe three patients who attempted to commit suicide by
ingesting overdoses of lorazepam, an intermediate-acting benzodiazepine
that, unlike diazepam, has no active metabolites. All three patients were
clinically well within 24-30 hours of ingestion, although high lorazepam
concentrations persisted. The authors point out that the elimination
half-life of lorazepam after extremely high doses have been ingested is
approximately the same as that found after ingestion of usual therapeutic
doses.
