In the past decade, 8 new antiepileptic drugs have been approved for use in the United States, offering many new treatment options to patients with epilepsy. With expanding use of these newer agents, primary care clinicians are challenged with understanding the roles that each new agent plays in the treatment of patients with epilepsy as well as possible interactions with other pharmacological ...

Forty four consecutive patients with epilepsy and psychoses were studied retrospectively for psychotic episodes associated with changes in antiepileptic drug therapy. Twenty seven patients (61%) developed their first episode of psychosis unrelated to changes in their antiepileptic drug regimen. Twenty three of these patients developed psychoses with temporally unrelated changes in seizure frequ...

Lacosamide is a new antiepileptic drug that has been successfully used for the treatment of partial seizures. We report three neurosurgical cases of simple partial status epilepticus refractory to multiple antiepileptic medications. The addition of oral lacosamide in doses of 200-400 mg in combination with the existing treatment had successfully controlled the seizures within four days.

PURPOSE Currently around 30% of all newly developed seizures are diagnosed in persons older than 65 years. Five to 17% of nursing home-residents take antiepileptic drugs. The aim of our study was to analyze the type and frequency of prescribed antiepileptic drugs, as well as their indication, co-morbidities and co-medications in institutionalized elderly in Austria. METHODS This was a retrosp...

Background: Patients with epilepsy are at higher risk for atherosclerosis which may be due to epilepsy or antiepileptic drugs. The frequency of atherosclerosis in patients with epilepsy was not previously studied in Egypt. Objective of this study: This study aimed to detect the frequency of subclinical atherosclerosis and some vascular risk factors in patients with idiopathic epilepsy and to co...

The Australian Registry of Antiepileptic Drug Use in Pregnancy includes 172 instances in which women took sodium valproate, with or without other antiepileptic drugs, during pregnancy. These pregnancies resulted in a substantially higher (p < 0.05) rate of malformed offspring (15.1%) compared with 348 pregnant women who took antiepileptic drugs other than valproate (2.3%) and 40 pregnancies in ...

RATIONALE: There is a complex interplay between epilepsy, antiepileptic drugs, and reproductive endocrine disorders. Epilepsy itself may influence on the hormonal balance, hormones may affect epilepsy, hormones may influence on the efficacy and metabolism of antiepileptic drugs and antiepileptic drugs may alter the hormone levels.To better understand the interaction of antiepileptic drugs and p...

The interactions of epilepsy and antiepileptic therapy an one hand and cardiovascular system on the other hand are multiple and complex. Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) cause alterations of serum lipids and of the fatty acid composition of the membranes. Homocystein, known to induce vascular endothelial damage was found to be elevated in patients on valproate (VPA) and carbamazepine (CBZ) therapy. M...

BACKGROUND Epilepsy is commonly associated with reproductive endocrine disorders. These include polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), isolated components of this syndrome such as polycystic ovaries, hyperandrogenaemia, hypothalamic amenorrhoea, and functional hyperprolactinaemia. OBJECTIVE To summarise the currently known relations between epilepsy and reproductive endocrine disorders. METHODS ...

Background: Pharmaceuticals, like antiepileptic drugs, are found regularly in surface waters, and consequently, advanced waste water treatment technologies are discussed for substance elimination. Because antiepileptic drugs have shown to transform to more toxic substances, their behavior in these treatment processes and resulting effects on ecotoxicity should be investigated. To validate if wa...