Abstracts

Levetiracetam (LEV) is an effective antiepileptic drug in add on therapy of pharmakoresistent focal epilepsies. In Europe it is not licensed for monotherapy and generalised idiopathic epilepsies. Nevertheless we have good experience in responder cases when we switched from add on to LEV monotherapy. In this study we want to present datas from initial LEV-monotherapy. This is a retrospective observational study in drug resistant cases with focal and generalised epilepsies. In our outpatient department we analysed retrospectively the patient charts and the patients diary in respect to seizure frequency (SZF) and tolerability. From 733 patients under LEV add-on-therapy we had 48% responder with 25% seizure free patients, 104 patients were switched to monotherapy, 14 patients had an initial monotherapy (7 male, 7 female). The average duration of epilepsy was 6,7 years (1-23,83). The average follow up was 51,3 (7-154,6) months. From 14 cases, 11 (78%) were seizure free. From 6 focal epilepsies 4 and from 8 generalised epilepsies 7. LEV promises to be a good antiepileptic drug even in initial monotherapy. The number of cases is too small to give a statement about a preference of efficacy either in focal or in generalised epilepsies.