Journal
NEUROLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 30, Issue 4, Pages 353-359Publisher
SPRINGER-VERLAG ITALIA SRL
DOI: 10.1007/s10072-009-0087-x
Keywords
Levetiracetam; Brain tumor-related epilepsy; Efficacy; Quality of life
Categories
Funding
- UCB Pharma
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The aim of this pilot study was to investigate the effects of levetiracetam monotherapy on seizure control, quality of life and neurocognitive performance in patients with brain tumor-related epilepsy. We present here preliminary data from 18 patients with follow-up of 6 months. We evaluated seizure frequency at baseline. We used administered Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), Karnofsky Performance Status (KPS), Barthel index (BI), QOLIE 31P (V2), EORTC QLQ-C30 and Adverse Events Profile. After 6 months, 16 patients were seizure free (88.9%), 2 (11.1%) had reduction in seizure frequency > 50%. Compared to baseline, we observed a worsening of performance (KPS p = 0.011; BI = 0.008) and global lower cognitive performance (MMSE p = 0.011); distress related to seizure frequency (p = 0.003) and medication effects (p = 0.046) were significantly lower. Levetiracetam caused mild and reversible side effects. These preliminary data on LEV monotherapy in patients with brain tumor-related epilepsy show that this antiepileptic drug is efficacious and well tolerated.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available