Abstracts

Rationale: The aim of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of cannabidiol for treatment of refractory epilepsy in children and adolescents. Methods: We conducted a prospective open-label follow-up on patients treated with oil extracted from Cannabis with CBD/THC ratio of 20:1. The exact dosing of CBD and THC were tested by certified laboratories. Patients with F/U period of less than 4 months who are still treated were excluded. CBD dose was modified according to response and adverse reactions. Results: Fifty two patients with various types of epilepsies and etiologies were recruited in a single pediatric epilepsy outpatient clinic. The patients' age range was between 1 to 20 years. Twenty-five percents of the patients had normal intelligence. The patients were followed for a period of 4-29 months (average 13 months). Nineteen patients failed 11-17 AEDs and 24 failed 6-10 AEDs prior to treatment. Additional treatments prior to cannabidiol included VNS (15), KTG (16) and epilepsy surgery (3). Response to CBD-THC oil treatment was calculated according to parents' reports at clinic visits. Fifteen patients (29%) had no response to the treatment, 10 (19%) had less than 50% seizures' reduction, 15 (29%) had 50-75% reduction, 8 (15%) had 75-99% reduction and 4 (7.7%) were seizure free. Sixteen patients (30.7%) dropped from the trial due to either lack of response or adverse reactions. Conclusions: Our study suggests that in cases of refractory epilepsy the use of cannabidiol may result in a significant (>75%) reduction of seizure frequency in a significant number of the patients and therefore should be considered as an additional treatment option. Funding: No funding