title: Experience with rufinamide in a pediatric population: a single center's experience.
abstract: Rufinamide is a new antiepileptic drug recently approved as adjunctive treatment for generalized seizures in Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. We undertook a retrospective analysis of 77 patients with refractory epilepsy and receiving rufinamide to evaluate the drug's efficacy, tolerability, safety, and dosing schedules. It appeared efficacious in diverse epilepsy syndromes, with the highest responder rate in focal cryptogenic epilepsies (81.1% of patients with >50% response rate), and in diverse seizure types, with the highest responder rate in tonic/atonic and partial seizures (48.6% and 46.7% of patients with >50% response rate, respectively). Rufinamide was well tolerated: only 13% of patients developed side effects necessitating drug withdrawal. These findings suggest that rufinamide may possess good efficacy and tolerability, and that its efficacy may extend to epilepsy syndromes beyond Lennox-Gastaut, including both partial and generalized epilepsy syndromes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vendrame
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Loddenkemper
authors.forename: Vasu D
authors.initials: VD
authors.lastname: Gooty
authors.forename: Masanori
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takeoka
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rotenberg
authors.forename: Ann M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bergin
authors.forename: Yaman Z
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Eksioglu
authors.forename: Annapurna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Poduri
authors.forename: Frank H
authors.initials: FH
authors.lastname: Duffy
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Libenson
authors.forename: Blaise F
authors.initials: BF
authors.lastname: Bourgeois
authors.forename: Sanjeev V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Kothare
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010372:Pediatrics; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012640:Seizures / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000503:physiopathology; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014230:Triazoles / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000927:Anticonvulsants; D014230:Triazoles; C079703:rufinamide