Long-term efficacy and tolerability of levetiracetam in different age groups of children with epilepsy: A 210 cases report / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the long-term efficacy and tolerability of levetiracetam (LEV) in mono-or increasing dosage for treatment of children in different age groups suffering from epilepsy. Methods Two hundred and ten outpatient children with epilepsy inhabiting in southwest of China were treated with mono-or increasing dosage of LEV. The children were divided into five different groups infant group (n=58), nursery group (n=46), preschool age group (n=60), school age group (n=40) and adolescence group (n=6). The initial LEV dose was 10mg/(kg.d), twice a day, and then the dosage increased gradually reaching the target dose 60mg/(kg.d) during 3-4 weeks to achieve good effect and tolerability. The children were followed up for 4 years, the efficacy of LEV was evaluated based on the number of seizures before and after drug administration, and the side effects were observed. Results Five groups of children treated with LEV showed obviously decreased seizure frequency compared with that of baseline frequency (P0.05). Among infant group, nursery group, preschool age group, and school age group, the effective rate of LEV treatment was 70.0% (40/58), 76.1% (35/46), 58.3% (35/60), and 82.5% (33/40), respectively, and the complete remission rate was 41.8% (26/58), 58.7% (27/46), 41.7% (25/60) and 67.5% (27/40), respectively. The major side effects observed were somnolence, irritability, general fatigue, headache, abnormal behavior, learning disability, declined cognitive ability, anorexia, etc. The incidence of side effect in infants group, nursery group, preschool age group and school age group was 39.7%, 54.3%, 61.7% and 52.5%, respectively. Conclusions LEV may obviously decrease the seizure frequency of epilepsy in all the age groups of children, especially in school age group. LEV shows a short duration and low incidence of side effects, especially in the infant group.