Antiepileptic drug pregnancy registries: do the latest findings concur?

Registry versus clinical trial The main goal of pregnancy registries includes the rapid identification of signals of increased teratogenic risk as quickly as possible, which is especially important for newly available anti epileptic drugs (AEDs) [1–3]. When the association between an increased risk and an AED is found in a registry, the cause can be further explored in a case–control study or aspects of the risk can be studied in a clinical trial. In general, registry data are considered to be less accurate than data from clinical trials because the enrollment criteria in a registry study may be more subject to bias and variability, whereas the enrollment criteria can be refined and strictly controlled for case–control studies or clinical trials. On the other hand, risks discovered in a clinical trial can be evaluated for their importance in a larger population by surveying for them in a registry.