PURPOSE To review the evidence for efficacy and safety of lacosamide in adult patients with refractory epilepsy and refractory status epilepticus (RSE). METHODS A systematic literature search of MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, IPA, Google and Google Scholar (through October 2014) was performed. RESULTS Fourteen studies assessing lacosamide in 3509 refractory epilepsy patients were included. In 3 R...

OBJECTIVE About one third of partial seizures are refractory to treatment. Several anticonvulsant drugs have entered the market in recent decades but concerns about intolerance, drug interactions, and the safety of the drug are notable. One of these new anticonvulsants is pregabalin, a safe drug with almost no interaction with other antiepileptic drugs. METHODS In this open label clinical tri...

lamotrigine (ltg), a newly developed antiepileptic drug (aed), is efficacious in treating refractory epilepsy. this study was designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ltg as add-on therapy in 40 children with refractory epilepsy. the trial was an open-labeled prospective study in children with drug-resistant epilepsy aged <14 years, who had at least 4 seizures per month in spite of recei...

BACKGROUND Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) is a potentially useful tool in the in vivo investigation of brain metabolites in intractable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Focal N-acetylaspartate (NAA) reductions have been correlated with mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) in surgically resected epileptogenic foci. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the abnormalities in the metabolites NAA, creati...

Epilepsy is a neurological disease of the central nervous system. It is estimated that about 50-70 million people worldwide suffer from this chronic disorder and 20 to 30% are resistant to conventional anti-epileptic drugs. In the epilepsy therapeutic arena, there is real need for developing novel antiepileptogenesis treatments that offer a way to prevent the onset or the progression of the dis...

PURPOSE: Temporal lobectomy is a well-established treatment for refractory temporal lobe epilepsy, yet many patients experience at least one seizure postoperatively. Little is known about the prognostic significance of the time from surgery to first seizure relapse in predicting long-term outcome. METHODS: In a retrospective analysis of patients who reported at least one complex partial seizure...

PURPOSE The optimal therapy of patients with cerebral cavernoma (CCs) and new onset epilepsy, sporadic seizures, or non well established refractory epilepsy is still not clear. The aim of this study was to compare the incidence of seizures in patients with CCs both operated and non operated, in order to obtain more information on the correct management of these patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS...

Diagnosis of complex partial epilepsy is based on the clinical history, and laboratory tests, including EEG and neuroimaging studies, corroborate the diagnosis. The goal of epilepsy management is to make the patient completely seizure-free without drug-induced side effects, even in the patient with refractory complex partial seizures. Frequently this can be accomplished by choice of the optimal...

PURPOSE Epilepsy surgery can result in complete seizure remission rates of upto 80% in patients with mesial temporal sclerosis and unilateral seizures. The seizure-free rate after surgery for patients with extratemporal nonlesional epilepsy has ranged between 30% and 40%. Some patients with medically refractory localization-related epilepsy cannot be offered surgical resection because of inadeq...