Experience With Rufinamide in a Pediatric Population: A Single Center's Experience

• Published in: Pediatric neurology Vol. 43; no. 3; pp. 155 - 158
• Main Authors: Vendrame, Martina, MD, PhD, Loddenkemper, Tobias, MD, Gooty, Vasu D., MD, Takeoka, Masanori, MD, Rotenberg, Alexander, MD, PhD, Bergin, Ann M., MD, Eksioglu, Yaman Z., MD, Poduri, Annapurna, MD, Duffy, Frank H., MD, Libenson, Mark, MD, Bourgeois, Blaise F., MD, Kothare, Sanjeev V., MD
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.09.2010; Elsevier
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Anticonvulsants - therapeutic use; Bacterial diseases; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child, Preschool; Epilepsy - drug therapy; Epilepsy - physiopathology; Female; Human bacterial diseases; Humans; Infant; Infectious diseases; Male; Medical sciences; Neurology; Pediatrics; Retrospective Studies; Seizures - drug therapy; Seizures - physiopathology; Treatment Outcome; Triazoles - therapeutic use; Tuberculosis and atypical mycobacterial infections; Young Adult; Human; Pediatrics; Experience; Nervous system diseases; Rufinamide; Child
• ISSN: 0887-8994; 1873-5150
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pediatrneurol.2010.04.003

Rufinamide is a new antiepileptic drug recently approved as adjunctive treatment for generalized seizures in Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. We undertook a retrospective analysis of 77 patients with refractory epilepsy and receiving rufinamide to evaluate the drug's efficacy, tolerability, safety, and dosing schedules. It appeared efficacious in diverse epilepsy syndromes, with the highest responder rate in focal cryptogenic epilepsies (81.1% of patients with >50% response rate), and in diverse seizure types, with the highest responder rate in tonic/atonic and partial seizures (48.6% and 46.7% of patients with >50% response rate, respectively). Rufinamide was well tolerated: only 13% of patients developed side effects necessitating drug withdrawal. These findings suggest that rufinamide may possess good efficacy and tolerability, and that its efficacy may extend to epilepsy syndromes beyond Lennox-Gastaut, including both partial and generalized epilepsy syndromes.