Levetiracetam May Be More Effective for Late-Onset Partial Epilepsy
2002; American Medical Association; Volume: 59; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1001/archneur.59.12.1905
ISSN1538-3687
AutoresCarl W. Bazil, Andrew Rose, Stanley R. Resor, Bülent Yapicular, Lawrence J. Hirsch,
Tópico(s)Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research
ResumoBackground: Many agents are available for treating epilepsy; however, population studies have failed to show overall differences in efficacy for a given seizure type.Clinical experience suggests that certain individuals will respond to a given agent while others with the same seizure type will not.Objectives: To examine a population of patients who received one of the newer antiepileptic drugs, levetiracetam, and to identify those who had either a dramatic improvement or a significant worsening of seizures.Methods: Retrospective medical record review of patients with refractory epilepsy.Results: Patients who responded well to levetiracetam therapy were older at the onset of epileptic seizure than those who did not (mean [SD] age, 51 [5] vs 27 [3] years; PϽ.05).This was also true of the subset of patients who had localization-related epilepsy.Patients with temporal lobe onset were likely to do well whereas patients with frontal lobe onset were not.Conclusions: These results suggest that certain subpopulations may be particularly likely to respond to levetiracetam therapy.These need to be confirmed in a larger prospective trial; however, looking for specific characteristics of patients who respond to certain drugs may lead to useful guidelines for drug choices in treating epilepsy.
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