Objective: It is known that current antiepileptic drugs cannot control seizures in 20-30% of patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of topiramate (TPM) as add-on therapy in intractable epileptic children in Iran.
Methods: As a quasi- experimental (before and after) study, 42 iranian children aged 1-15 years, 28 boys and 14 girls with refractory seizures seeking treatment were recruited to be subjects of this study.
Results: Type of seizures of those 42 epileptic children were as follows: L.G.S (n=14), idiopathic epilepsy (n=8), symptomatic epilepsy (n=16) and progressive myoclonic epilepsy (n=4). At the end of three months of treatment in which topiramate was used concomitantly with previous AED, 17% became seizure free, 26% had more than 50% reduction of seizure frequency and 5% of them had increasing seizures. Therefore, the drug is statistically significant in seizures reduction. The efficacy of the drug was statistically significant in idiopathic and symptomatic epilepsy. The author's did not notice any serious side effects such as: hematologic abnormality, hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity.
Conclusion: This study supports efficacy and safety of TPM in controlling of intractable epilepsy in children and indicates the drug should be considered as an add-on therapy in the management of refractory epileptic syndromes.