title: Effectiveness and safety assessment of lamotrigine monotherapy for treatment of epilepsy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Epilepsy is a recurrent chronic nervous system disease. A correct choice of antiepileptic drug is the key to control seizures and improve patient's life quality.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To study the effectiveness and safety of lamotrigine monotherapy for treatment of epilepsy, systemic evaluation was carried out on published comparative trials between lamotrigine and carbamazepine.
  
  
  METHODS
  The retrieval method referred to the search strategy developed by Cochrane Epilepsy Group and software Rev.Man 5 was used for META analysis and forest plots. The Odds ratio (OR) was selected as the effect size and funnel plot was used to analyze the publication bias.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 9 studies and 2269 cases of patients were included in the analysis. There was no significant difference between lamotrigine and carbamazepine for treatment of epilepsy as the OR was 1.17, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.88, 1.54]. However, lamotrigine had advantages in the overall withdrawal rate and withdrawal rate due to side effects as the ORs were 0.57, 95% CI [0.47, 0.69] and 0.41, 95% CI [0.32, 0.52].
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Lamotrigine has certain advantages over carbamazepine for treatment of epilepsy as it has less side effects and higher tolerability. In addition, the quality of such clinical trials should be further improved to have a more comprehensive understanding.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shanxi, China. maleimaleimmll@hotmail.com
authors.forename: X-W
authors.initials: XW
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: Y-F
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: X-D
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Meng
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D000077213:Lamotrigine; D017594:Publication Bias; D014227:Triazines / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D000927:Anticonvulsants; D014227:Triazines; D000077213:Lamotrigine