Rash in psychiatric and nonpsychiatric adolescent patients receiving lamotrigine in Korea: a retrospective cohort study.
OBJECTIVE
Lamotrigine is a widely used medication for psychiatric disorders and epilepsy, but the adverse effects of this drug in adolescent Korean patients have not yet been investigated. In the present study, we sought to compare the incidence and impact of lamotrigine-induced skin rashes and different pattern of adverse events in psychiatric and nonpsychiatric adolescent patients.


METHODS
Using a retrospective cohort design, all of the charts were reviewed for adolescents (13 to 20 years old), treated with lamotrigine during the previous 2 years in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic and Pediatric Neurologic Clinic of the Ulsan University Hospital in South Korea.


RESULTS
Of the 102 subjects, 23 patients developed a skin rash. All of these rashes were observed within 7 weeks of the initiation of the lamotrigine therapy. Only one subject developed a serious rash, which was diagnosed as Stevens-Johnson syndrome. Although the psychiatric subjects were administered statistically lower doses of lamotrigine during weeks 1 through 5 and at week 12, the likelihood of developing a rash was not significantly different between the psychiatric and nonpsychiatric patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Careful dose escalation and close observation of side effects for the first 7 weeks of treatment is important. The present study reveals the tolerability of lamotrigine in an adolescent population, although a double-blind, controlled trial is needed to confirm these findings.
Department of Psychiatry, Ulsan University Hospital, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Ulsan, Korea.
Hee-Jong
HJ
Tak
Joon-Ho
JH
Ahn
Kun-Woo
KW
Kim
Yeni
Y
Kim
Sam-Wook
SW
Choi
Kyung-Yeon
KY
Lee
Eun Jin
EJ
Park
Soo-Young
SY
Bhang