Abstracts

Rationale: We sought to determine the effectiveness of the newly-marketed antiepileptic drug (AED), rufinamide, in non Lennox-Gastaut adult epilepsy patients. Methods: The initial outcome of intractable adult epilepsy patients who were prescribed rufinamide for additional seizure control are presented herein. The data was compiled by chart review. Responders were defined as at least a 50% decrease in seizure frequency of a specific seizure type. Statistics used were descriptive, and Spearman’s rank correlations (2-tailed). Results: Fourteen patients were evaluated with age ranges from 19 to 47 years, with a median of 38 years. Age of onset of epilepsy was between 4 months and 20 years, with a median of 4 years. At present, ten patients had frontal seizure localization and 4 had temporal localization. Patients took between 2 and 5 other antiseizure treatments, including VNS. Six patients were severely developmentally delayed. The duration of therapy was between 1 and 3 months, with a median of 2 months. Dose at last assessment ranged from 200 to 1200 mg per day, with a median of 800 mg. Six patients were seizure frequency responders. Four of the patients that responded took between 800 and 1200 mg per day and the other two took less. Spearman's rank analysis showed no correlation between dose and responder status or between seizure localization and responder status. Four patients reported adverse effects, most were psychiatric. One patient discontinued rufinamide due to a severe depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Our results indicate that rufinamide is well tolerated. Our preliminary experience likely reflects the low doses achieved during the brief follow-up period while upward titration of rufinamide and clinical assessment were still in progress. Further, these findings suggest that doses associated with meaningful seizure frequency reduction in the non Lennox-Gastaut adult epilepsy population were ≥800 mg per day.