Gastrointestinal Adverse Effects With Divalproex Sodium and Valproic Acid

Letter to the Editor

Sir: The retrospective analysis by Zarate et al. comparingtolerability and efficacy of valproic acid and divalproex sodiumin an inpatient psychiatric setting found a statistically significantdifference in the incidence of gastrointestinal adverse effects.The authors also noted that the dosing frequency wassignificantly higher with valproic acid. It is important to notethat the patients in both groups were naive to treatment withvalproic acid and that the duration of data collection was lessthan 5 weeks.