[Height alterations and calcium metabolism after prolongated phenobarbital treatment (author's transl)].

In order to know if small children subjected to a long-term treatment with phenobarbital can suffer some alterations in their lineal growth or in their osseous maturity in the same way as those showed by epileptical mother's sons, 85 patients between six months and three years old, who had suffered fit convulsions during a fever process, 20 of them subjected to antithermic treatment, and the 65 left who received a phenobarbital treatment in doses of 5 mg./kg./day have been controlled. In each child, at the beginning of the control and after 12 months, their height, diaphysial diameter and cortical thickness of the metacarpal bones, and bone age is valued. At the same time a calcium, phosphorous and phosphatase-alcaline control was done. The group who had received anti-convulsivants drugs, showed a significant decrease in their lineal growth and in calcium concentration in blood. The control group didn't present any significant variation in any of the controls performed.