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The efficacy and safety of oxcarbazepine as add-on therapy in intractable epilepsy in children.

Objective 1-3% of the population suffer from epilepsy. Up to 30% of them develop refractory epilepsy and their seizures occur more than once per month despite receiving at least 2 first line antiepileptic drugs. In  this group, more efficacious antiepileptics are needed. This study was undertaken to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Oxcarbazepine as an adjunction therapy in children with refractory epilepsy. Materials & Methods From Feb 2004 until Sep 2006, 30 patients with refractory epilepsy aged between 4 and 14 years were evaluated in a before and after type study. The patients had seizure ranging from once monthly to more than 10 times daily and none of them had used Oxcarbazepine previously. They received Oxcarbazepine 30 to 50 mg/kg/day orally in  combination with their current antiepileptic drugs and were regularly assessed for seizure frequency and side effects for 10 months. Results With Oxcarbazepine adjunction therapy, 10% of the patients became seizure-free, 36.6% experienced more than 50% reduction in seizure frequency, and 13.3% had increasing seizures. The drug was  especially effective in the patients with partial seizures (77.7%). Brief and transient adverse effects were seen in 36.6% of the patients which disappeared with treatment continuation. Wilcoxon signed ranks test showed that oxcarbazepine was effective in the treatment of refractory seizures (P=0.003) and as shown by Fisher's exact test, it was more effective in partial seizures (P=0.0043). Conclusion The results showed that Oxcarbazepine was a useful medication in the treatment of refractory epilepsy, especially the partial type, in children.