Abstracts

Carbamazepine, phenytoin and possibly oxcarbamazepine can induce or strengthen cardiac arrhytmias. Experience with lamotrigine on cardiac function is limited so far. The primary objective was (1) to detect the prevalence and character of cardiac function changes in elderly people with epilepsy, as these can be seen electrophysiologically by ECG, and (2) to examine and evaluate similar or different ECG abnormalities taking place during modern AED treatment. We present the data obtained from the first 21 patients. The patients were included in the Norwegian branch of the European double-blind randomised comparative study of lamotrigine and slow-release carbamazepine in newly diagnosed epilepsy patients (LAM 40089 trial). Good quality 12 leads 50 millimeters/sec ECG recordings took place at inclusion and at the end of treatment (36 week visit). In the present group of patients, 13 were male. Since all these subjects completed the study, 42 single ECG recordings were analysed. Every subject was above the age of 65 years. 12 patients had a normal baseline ECG.
The prevalence of ECG abnormalities prior to treatment, and during AED therapy, respectively, are shown in Table 1. [table1] The preliminary data from a number of elderly epilepsy patients show a releatively high prevalence of ECG morphological changes. AED treatment seem to worsen this tendency.