Little is known about the long term prognosis of refractory epilepsy patients who do not undergo epilepsy surgery. We performed a telephone survey and chart review of patients who underwent presurgical evaluation in our Unit but did not have surgery, from 1998 until 2004. We contacted 84 patients; mean follow-up was 6.7 years. Four patients (4.7%) had died, presumably of SUDEP. Ten patients (13...

Levetiracetam is a new anti-epileptic drug that is currently not licensed for use in children. Studies in adults suggest that it may be a useful adjunctive treatment both in partial onset and generalised epilepsy. A retrospective case notes review of 26 children age 10 years and under with refractory epilepsy was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the drug. The drug appeared to b...

PURPOSE To evaluate the long-term efficacy, tolerability, and safety of oxcarbazepine (OXC) in medically refractory partial epilepsy. METHODS This study is the open-label extension phase that followed a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, dose-response clinical study of OXC monotherapy in patients with medically refractory partial epilepsy. We analyzed the efficacy, tolerability, and safet...

In recent years, vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) has been proposed as a possible way to improve the control of refractory (partial and generalized) seizures. To date, however, there is no complete understanding of the underlying mechanism for this action nor are there any available guidelines or criteria for the selection of those candidates that might be most suitable for this kind of neuromodul...

OBJECTIVES To systematically review and synthesize the available evidence on the efficacy of the ketogenic diet in reducing seizure frequency for children with refractory epilepsy. DATA SOURCES Medline searches were performed using the keywords epilepsy/therapy, dietary therapy, and epilepsy, and the text word ketogenic diet. The Cochrane Library of clinical trials was searched using the term...

We investigated the clinical features and surgical outcome of 17 patients with refractory epilepsy secondary to CNS infection who were referred to a tertiary center for presurgical evaluation. Six patients had a history of meningitis and 11 patients had a history of encephalitis. Median age at infection was three years (40 days-40 years). Time to seizure onset was shorter in the encephalitis gr...

PURPOSE In this Argentinean retrospective, collaborative, multicenter study, we examine the efficacy and tolerability of the ketogenic diet (KD) for different epilepsy syndromes. MATERIALS AND METHODS we evaluated the clinical records of 216 patients started on the KD between March 1, 1990 and December 31, 2010. RESULTS One hundred forty of the initial patients (65%) remained on the diet at...

BACKGROUND Clobazam has been used in clinical practice as an adjunctive treatment for diverse seizure types and epilepsy syndromes. We evaluated the efficacy and safety of clobazam in a large sample of patients with refractory epilepsy at a tertiary pediatric center. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed patients treated with clobazam between January 2001 and July 2013 who had a follow-up visit...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the ketogenic diet (KD) treatment of refractory childhood epilepsy in China and determine which children are more likely to respond. METHODS Between 2004 and 2011, we prospectively enrolled 317 children with refractory epilepsy for the KD treatment in Shenzhen Children's Hospital and followed up for at least a year. Outcome was measured by seiz...

Considering the burden of epilepsy on society, investigation of the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is essential for the better future targeting, optimization of current interventions and managing strategies for epilepsy. Nineteen HRQoL were investigated in this review. Increases in seizure incidence, level of depression and seizure severity were significantly related to reduced HRQoL. T...