Epilepsy Research UK: Withdrawing AED Use After Surgery ‘Can Affect Relapse Rates A new study has cast light on the potential impact that the timing of anti-epileptic drug (AED) withdrawal can have on relapse rates among young patients who have undergone epilepsy surgery. Conducted at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the study looked at 95 children who had experienced postoperative seizure recurrence following AED withdrawal in order to gain a new understanding of this trend. It has been suggested that early postoperative seizure relapse can be indicative of a failure to define and resect the epileptogenic zone and that late recurrences show that epileptogenic pathology has persisted or re-emerged, while early recurrence is usually associated with poor treatment response. However, the timing of AED withdrawal policies following surgery has never been studied in detail, so the European team sought to examine how time intervals from surgery to AED withdrawal – as well as other previously suggested determinants of seizure recurrence – related to relapse rates and treatability. According to results published in the medical journal Epileptic Disorders, a shorter interval to AED reduction was shown to be the only independent predictor of a shorter time to relapse in a multivariable analysis. Keep Reading at Source (Epilepsy Research UK): epilepsyresearch.org.uk/withdrawing-aed-use-after-surgery-can-affect-relapse-rates/
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 15:30:13 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015