Predicting antiepileptic drug response in children with epilepsy

: Sillanpää Matti, Schmidt Dieter

: 2011

: Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics

: 6

: 11

: 6

: 877

: 886

: 9

: 1473-7175

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1586/ERN.11.11

In clinical practice, after diagnosis and when treatment has begun, it is important to predict as

soon as possible which children will become seizure-free and which are likely to develop medically

intractable seizures. This article summarizes factors predicting seizure remission in childhoodonset

epilepsy treated with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). Sustained seizure remission can be

expected in over 90% of idiopathic epilepsies of childhood and in neurologically normal children

with epilepsy having infrequent seizures showing early remission after starting treatment with

AEDs. Even in the presence of symptomatic etiology of epilepsy – focal seizures and syndromes;

high seizure frequency prior to or during treatment; seizure clustering; and poor or delayed

response to first adequate drug therapy – up to 60% of children with treated epilepsy are able

to enter long-term remission. However, remission can be expected in only 30% or less of those

with catastrophic epilepsies of childhood.