Mortality in Antiepileptic Drug Trials

The trials of antiepileptic drug trials

Studies of new antiepileptic drugs (AED) present challenges unique to the treatment of seizures and epilepsy. Perhaps the most prominent of these challenges is the ethical concern of using an unproven medication alone in a study of patients with diagnosed epilepsy. As a result, the focus in the design of current methods of evaluating AED has been on patient safety. Given the constraints of the ...

Design of clinical antiepileptic drug trials

It may fairly be claimed that up to the last decade no antiepileptic drug (AED) had undergone rigorous testing. The development programmes of the new AEDs registered in recent years have necessarily been innovative, and methods of AED testing are still undergoing rapid evolutionary change. Clinical evaluation of AEDs is both difficult and complex, due mainly to two factors: (1) intermittence of...

New antiepileptic drug trials in developing countries: are they necessary?

In recent times, antiepileptic drug (AED) development has expanded with at least seven new AEDs being marketed in a variety of countries. However, in this same period there have been very few trials of new AEDs in the developing world where the majority of people with epilepsy reside. There are many problems with the extrapolation of results from AED trials in developed countries, thus underlin...

Antiepileptic drug actions.

Antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) vary in their efficacy against generalized tonic-clonic, myoclonic, and absence seizures, suggesting different mechanisms of action. Phenytoin (PHT), carbamazepine (CBZ), and valproate (VPA) reduced the ability of mouse central neurons to sustain high-frequency repetitive firing of action potentials (SRF) at therapeutic free serum concentrations. Phenobarbital (PB) an...

A new antiepileptic drug.