Bioavailability of oral and intramuscular molindone hydrochloride in schizophrenic patients

This study was designed to assess the bioequivalence of intramuscular molindone hydrochloride and marketed oral molindone. Ten schizophrenic patients (mean age, 30.2 years) received oral molindone in single daily doses of 100 or 150 mg for four to eight days followed by intramuscular molindone in single daily doses of 50 or 75 mg for four days. On the last day each molindone formulation was given, plasma samples were collected at baseline and at 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 12 hours after administration. The pharmacokinetic measures of area under the curve and maximum concentration show that intramuscular molindone is 1.49 to 1.67 times more bioavailable than oral molindone. This finding indicates that once a patient's acute psychotic episode has been stabilized with intramuscular molindone, therapy can continue without interruption by substituting 1.5 mg of oral molindone for every 1 mg of intramuscular molindone. The time to maximum concentration occurred significantly earlier (P = 0.05) with intramuscular molindone (0.6 hours) than with oral molindone (1.1 hours). Elimination half-life values were approximately two hours for both formulations.