OBJECTIVE To investigate whether first trimester exposure to lamotrigine (LTG) monotherapy is specifically associated with an increased risk of orofacial clefts (OCs) relative to other malformations, in response to a signal regarding increased OC risk. METHODS Population-based case-control study with malformed controls based on EUROCAT congenital anomaly registers. The study population covere...

BACKGROUND The characterization of the first episode of psychosis and how it should be treated are principal issues in actual research. Realistic, naturalistic studies are necessary to represent the entire population of first episode of psychosis attended in daily practice. METHODS Sixteen participating centers from the PEPs project recruited 335 first episode of psychosis patients, aged 7 to...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between platelet count and serum valproic acid level, age, duration of valproic acid therapy, and polytherapy, and to determine the clinical significance of thrombocytopenia associated with high-dosage valproic acid therapy. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Residential unit for neurologically impaired children and paediatric out-patient clinic,...

OBJECTIVES Topiramate (Topamax) is licensed to be used, either in monotherapy or as adjunctive treatment, for generalized tonic clonic seizures or partial seizures with or without secondary generalization and for prevention of migraine. The safety of topiramate in human pregnancy is largely unknown. Here we report on our experience of pregnancies exposed to topiramate. METHODS This study is p...

UNLABELLED The effects of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) on bone mineral density (BMD) are well addressed, but data on children, especially concerning new antiepileptic medications, are scarce. This study aimed to reveal the impact of these drugs on the BMD of ambulatory patients with epilepsy. METHODS BMD and detailed clinical information were obtained on 108 patients and 38 controls using dual-...

We report the results of administration of the Portuguese-Brazilian translation of the Liverpool Adverse Events Profile (LAEP) to 100 patients (mean age=34.5, SD=12.12; 56 females), 61 with symptomatic partial epilepsy (SPE) and 39 with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) (ILAE, 1989) who were on a stable antiepileptic drug (AED) regimen and being treated in a Brazilian tertiary epilepsy cent...

Homocysteine (Hcy) is a sulfur-containing amino acid involved in methionine metabolism. An elevated total plasma Hcy concentration (tHcy) is a risk factor for vascular disease. The present study aimed to assess the role of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and C677T methylenetetrahydrofolate (MTHFR) polymorphisms on tHcy in pediatric patients with epilepsy treated for at least 6 months with various tr...

BACKGROUND Low adherence to hypertension (HT) management is one of the major contributors to poor blood pressure (BP) control. Approximately 40%-60% of patients with HT do not follow the prescribed treatment. The aim of the study was to analyze the relationship between selected variables and adherence to hypotensive pharmacological treatment. Besides socioclinical variables, the study focused o...

and methods. Q6. The patients were “recruited” but no indication is given of how they were “recruited”. This implies that the group might have been a highly-selected, biased population, with little or no relevance to the general population of the people with epilepsy. A6. The paper already specified that patients were recruited consecutively from secondary and tertiary Italian centers for the c...