Long-term efficacy of valproate versus lamotrigine in treatment of idiopathic generalized epilepsies in children and adolescents

PURPOSE In order to estimate and compare the long-term effectiveness of lamotrigine (LTG) versus valproate (VPA) monotherapy in treatment of newly diagnosed idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGE) the following study was performed. METHODS Medical records of 214 children and adolescents suffering from IGE were analyzed. 132 of them were on VPA monotherapy, 82 on LTG. The majority of patients had juvenile myoclonic epilepsy - 98, the rest: juvenile absence epilepsy - 32, childhood absence epilepsy - 53 and epilepsy with a tonic-clonic seizures on awakening - 12, others - 19. Mean age of the patients was 8.9 years (range 4-16 years). The mean time of treatment was 28 months, time of observation 40 months. In order to estimate retention rates and factors predicting successful treatment with LTG and VPA we used Kapplan-Meyer analysis and Gehan tests. RESULTS Data analysis showed significantly longer retention rates with VPA versus LTG treatment in overall rates as well in all syndromes subgroups. After 12 months of therapy 69% stayed on LTG therapy versus 89% on VPA, after 24 months 57% versus 83% respectively. VPA showed comparable efficacy in all IGE syndromes where LTG showed better efficacy in childhood and juvenile absence epilepsy than in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. The shorter duration of treatment with LTG was due to lack of efficacy. CONCLUSIONS Our results show the superiority of VPA versus LTG treatment in idiopathic generalized epilepsy syndromes.