title: [Eslicarbazepine acetate in clinical practice. Efficacy and safety results].
abstract: INTRODUCTION. Eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) is a new antiepileptic drug (AED) licensed in Spain in February 2011 as an adjunctive therapy in adults with partial seizures with or without secondary generalization. Clinical trials with ESL have demonstrated acceptable efficacy and safety. AIM. To evaluate the results of ESL in our epilepsy unit during its first year of clinical experience with this AED. PATIENTS AND METHODS. We included all patients who started treatment with ESL at our epilepsy unit from March 2011 to May 2012. We collected the following variables: gender, aetiology of epilepsy, epileptogenic area, reason for switch to ESL, clinical response after initiation of ESL, adverse effects of ESL, refractoriness criteria and treatment discontinuation. A bivariate factor-to-factor correlation study was carried out to establish associations between the independent variables and the clinical response. RESULTS. We recruited 105 patients (51.4% male). 20,7% of patients remained seizure-free and 58.4% showed > 50% improvement after introduction of ESL. At 6 months, 18.1% had experienced some type of side effect, with cognitive disorders being the most common, and 11.5% had discontinued treatment. Combination with lacosamide proved to be significantly less effective in the control of seizures. Combination of ESL with the rest of sodium channel inhibitors was similar in efficacy to others combinations. CONCLUSIONS. ESL is a well-tolerated and effective AED when is used as adjunctive treatment with most of other AED in clinical practice.
authors.affiliation: Unidad de Neurología y Neurofisiología, Hospital Torrecardenas, 04009 Almeria, Espana. pedro.serrano.c@gmail.com
authors.forename: Pedro J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Serrano-Castro
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Payán-Ortiz
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Cimadevilla
authors.forename: Pablo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Quiroga-Subirana
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fernández-Pérez
mesh_terms: D000081:Acetamides / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000627:therapeutic use; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000139:chemically induced; D003863:Depression / Q000139:chemically induced; D003984:Dibenzazepines / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D004828:Epilepsies, Partial / Q000188:drug therapy; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000188:drug therapy*; D004829:Epilepsy, Generalized / Q000188:drug therapy; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D000078334:Lacosamide; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D026941:Sodium Channel Blockers / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015430:Weight Gain / Q000187:drug effects; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D000081:Acetamides; D000927:Anticonvulsants; D003984:Dibenzazepines; D026941:Sodium Channel Blockers; D000078334:Lacosamide; C416835:eslicarbazepine acetate