Source: DGNews | Posted 9 years ago
Recently Launched Antiepileptic, Levetiracetem 'is effective in the long term'
Tags:
By Mark Pownall
Special to DG News
BARCELONA, SPAIN -- October 9, 2002-- The antiepileptic drug levetiracetam is effective over several years as an add-on therapy with a high retention rate, results from the first large long-term study have found.
The study, presented here October 7 at the fifth European Congress on Epileptology (ECE), was carried out by Professor Elinor Ben-Menachem and researchers from the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, in Gothenburg, Sweden.
They found that well over half of the patients were still on levetiracetam treatment, at doses of between 1000 and 4000 mg/day, at the end of a mean of three years, up to a maximum of seven years. In all 54.3 percent of the 505 patients enrolled in the trial were still taking a mean of 3000 mg levetiracetam treatment at the end of the trial period.
The multicentre, non-comparative, open-label follow-up study administered levetiracetam -- launched in Europe and the US two years ago -- as adjunctive treatment. The patients were examined every 12 weeks using standard safety and efficacy procedures. The trial
Comments