Clinically Useful Drugs

CLINICALLY USEFUL DRUGS

Anticonvulsant drugs may be divided into four classes, based on their most likely mechanism of action. Although it may be premature to assign a mechanism of action to some of these compounds, the proposed classes are a convenient way to group the drugs. 

Furthermore, the classes themselves may have relevance, since compounds in a particular category are of-ten used for the same clinical indication. For a proposed mechanism of action to be considered relevant for a given drug, the effect must occur at concentrations sim-ilar to those that are likely to be achieved therapeuti-cally.