Abstracts

Levetiracetam, a new antiepileptic drug licensed for add-on therapy in partial epilepsy, is being increasingly used in our unit for patients with primary generalised epilepsy. It is used particularly in patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (Krauss G, Betts T. Abou-Khalil B [italic]et al.[/italic] Seizure 2003,12;617-620) especially women withdrawn from sodium valproate before conception who cannot remain seizure-free on lamotrigine alone. Many of these patients have either photo or pattern sensitivity or both. We have observed the effect of levetiracetam on photo or pattern sensitivity in over 40 patients in our clinic. Levetiracetam appeared very successful in controlling both pattern and photo sensitivity and will sometimes do so when no other drug has previously been able to. A small number of patients, however, retain photo or pattern sensitivity even if they have tried all three drugs (sodium valproate, lamotrigine and levetiracetam). The reason for this is not clear but suggests that photo and/or pattern sensitivity is not a single entity. We have found levetiracetam to be successful in controlling photo and pattern sensitivity in patients with primary generalised epilepsy and speculate that it may become the drug of choice for photo and pattern sensitivity in women of child bearing age if our early experience of safety of this drug in pregnancy is confirmed.