Abstracts

Rationale: Despite the introduction of a new generation of epilepsy treatments, patients still experience adverse events and impaired quality of life (QoL). This study provides insight into the real-world impact of perampanel use among patients with epileptic seizures in the United States (US), with a focus on assessing patient satisfaction with treatment.

Methods: A US-based, multi-center observational cross-sectional survey was completed by 61 patients taking perampanel with or without other antiseizure medications (ASMs). Respondents were ≥18 years old, had a physician confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy, used perampanel for a ≥4 months, and provided informed consent. Patients responded to questions concerning their demographic characteristics, treatment history, experiences before perampanel, experiences while currently taking perampanel, treatment satisfaction (0-100 score; 0 being least satisfied to 100 being most satisfied), medication adherence, QoL, and healthcare resource utilization (HCRU). Descriptive statistics are presented.

Results: On average, patients (N=61) were 42.8 years old (range 18 – 69 years); the majority were female (63.9%), white (75.4%) and had health insurance (96.7%). A majority of patients (62.3%) reported being diagnosed with focal onset seizures while 45.9% reported a diagnosis of primary generalized seizures. Mean time on perampanel was 2.5 years, with the majority of patients using sodium channel blockers (55.7%) concomitantly with perampanel. The majority of patients were adherent (62.3%) to their perampanel regimen. Patients reported an average of 5.5 (SD=13.2) seizures/month after initiation of perampanel, whereas these same patients reported experiencing an average of 20.4 (SD=60.0) seizures/month prior to a perampanel regimen. Compared to previous ASMs, patients “strongly agreed” that perampanel allowed them to live a more normal life (36.1% vs. 27.5%) and worked as intended if they missed taking a dose (16.4% vs. 7.8%). Average satisfaction scores were high, with average ratings of 71.8 for effectiveness, 84.0 for convenience and 71.9 for global satisfaction. Perampanel use was associated with improvements in QoL and fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. HCRU was also lower with perampanel use, with fewer office visits on average (1.8 vs. 2.7) and emergency room visits on average due to seizure (0.7 vs. 2.2) compared with the previous 6 months prior to perampanel initiation.

Conclusions: Our real-world study found an association between perampanel use and high rates of adherence, reductions in the number of seizures and improvements in QoL and HCRU with a perampanel regimen. These results provide initial evidence that perampanel can be an effective and tolerable option for patients with epilepsy in the real-world setting.

Funding: Please list any funding that was received in support of this abstract.: The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from Eisai Inc.