Epilepsy Drug Effective As Single Therapy

Scottish scientists say newly diagnosed epilepsy patients experience few, if any, seizures while taking the drug levetiracetam as a single therapy.

The discovery by researchers at the Western Infirmary Epilepsy Unit in Glasgow, Scotland, gives hope to epilepsy patients who don’t respond to, or can’t tolerate, existing treatments.

For the double-blind study, researchers assigned nearly 600 adults who had at least two seizures during the previous year to the drug levetiracetam or to controlled-release carbamazepine, a common epilepsy treatment.

While levetiracetam is used as an add-on therapy, the study marked the first time its effectiveness as a single therapy has been clinically tested.

The researchers found 73 percent of patients taking levetiracetam and 72.8 percent of people receiving carbamazepine remained seizure-free for at least six months.

Levetiracetam helps fill a need for safe and well-tolerated, easy-to-use epilepsy drugs, particularly because more than 30 percent of patients do not achieve seizure control with existing treatments, said study author Dr. Martin Brodie. This trial confirms previous uncontrolled observations that most people with epilepsy will respond to their first epilepsy drug at low dosage.

The research appears in the journal Neurology.