Diagnostic Difficulties and Treatment Implications

Summary: Differentiation between types of epileptic seizures has been aided in recent years by the introduction of intensive neurodiagnostic techniques and the development of increasingly detailed classification systems. Paradoxically, these developments have not simplified the task of matching the appropriate antiepileptic drug to a particular seizure type. It is reasonable to assume that anticonvulsant drugs will have different effects on different types of seizures, but faulty, circular reasoning can enter the picture if one also assumes that responses of seizures to different drugs signify different seizure types. There are several examples of differential diagnoses that can fall prey to this problem, including the diagnosis between partial seizures with secondary generalization and generalized tonic-clonic seizures, and the diagnosis between complex partial seizures and absence seizures with automatisms, among others. Considerations of etiology in future classification systems can further complicate the problem: should one then choose an anticonvulsant drug on the basis of individual seizure type or on the basis of the type of epilepsy? Ramifications of this issue extend even to the drug approval process. Official sanction is not given for use of a drug for a seizure type not included in the original efficacy studies, even if later scientific evidence shows that seizure type to be related to a type that is included. New trials must be undertaken. These problems arise from how we choose to classify seizures.     

Cognitive Dysfunction Associated with Antiepileptic Drug Therapy

Summary: Epilepsy is frequently associated with cognitive dysfunction. However, the reasons for this correlation are unclear. Possible influential factors include patient age; duration, frequency, etiology, and type of seizures; hereditary factors; psychosocial issues; and antiepileptic drug (AED) therapy. Whereas many of these factors are beyond the physician's control, AED therapy is one element that can be addressed in treatment decisions by recognizing the potential cognitive effects of particular AEDs. For example, phenobarbital impairs memory and concentration; phenytoin affects attention, problem solving ability, and performance of visuomotor tasks. In contrast, carbamazepine may affect concentration, while valproate would appear to have minimal effects on cognition. Moreover, cognitive effects of AEDs are amplified with coadministration of multiple anticonvulsants (polytherapy). A review of studies on the cognitive effects of monotherapy with AEDs, as opposed to those of polytherapy, provides evidence that drug-related cognitive dysfunction can be reversed if patients are switched to a simpler therapeutic regimen. Future research should be directed toward developing reliable measures for assessing and monitoring cognition, and understanding the particular cognitive side effects of each AED. Physicians also need to revise their opinions about which side effects are "tolerable" for epileptic patients.     

Hepatic Considerations in the Use of Antiepileptic Drugs

Summary: Virtually all of the major antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) can cause hepatotoxicity, although fatal hepatic reactions are rare. The mechanisms, incidences, and risk profiles for such reactions differ from drug to drug. With carbamazepine and phenytoin, hepatotoxicity may be due to drug hypersensitivity. Although the profiles of patients at risk have not been well-defined for these two antiepileptic drugs, it would appear from reports in the literature that older adolescents and adults are at higher risk than children of developing serious or fatal hepatotoxicity. Once hepatotoxicity develops, mortality rates are 10–38% with phenytoin and 25% for carbamazepine. The risk profile for valproate fatal hepatotoxicity has been more clearly defined. Those at primary risk of fatal hepatic dysfunction are children under the age of 2 years who are receiving multiple anticonvulsants and also have significant medical problems in addition to severe epilepsy. The risk is considerably lower for patients over the age of 2 years on valproate monotherapy. In contrast to the risk profile with other AEDs, adults receiving valproate as monotherapy have the lowest risk of hepatotoxicity. Fatal hepatic dysfunction coincident with valproate may be the result of aberrant drug metabolism. Concomitant use of AEDs that induce microsomal P450 enzymes (e.g., phenytoin and phenobarbital) may enhance the production of a toxic metabolite, and hence the greater risk of hepatotoxicity with polypharmacy.     

Vascular Malformations and Epilepsy: Clinical Considerations and Basic Mechanisms

Summary: Vascular malformations (VMs) are associated with epilepsy. The natural history of the various VMs, clinical presentation, and tendency to provoke epilepsy determine treatment strategies. Investigations have probed the mechanisms of epileptogenesis associated with these lesions. Electrophysiologic changes are associated with epileptogenic cortex adjacent to VMs. Putative pathophysiologic mechanisms of epileptogenesis include neuronal cell loss, glial proliferation and abnormal glial physiology, altered neurotransmitter levels, free radical formation, and aberrant second messenger physiology.     

Carbamazepine Efficacy in Adults With Partial and Generalized Tonic-Clonic Seizures

Summary: Carbamazepine and phenytoin are drugs of choice in initial monotherapy for adult partial and secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures. These designations reflect the results of the Veterans Administration Epilepsy Cooperative Study Group of 1985. An earlier comparative study of carbamazepine and phenytoin by Ramsay and associates found both drugs equally effective in controlling new-onset seizures. Among the advantages of carbamazepine is that it causes relatively few cognitive and dysmorphic side effects. Its disadvantages are its unavailability in parenteral formulation and its metabolic autoinduction. The latter must be compensated for by planned dosage increases to maintain therapeutic plasma steady-state levels during the first 2 or 3 months of treatment. Carbamazepine is judged a drug of choice in the treatment of these secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures, and the drug of choice in children, adolescents, and women susceptible to the dysmorphic side effects associated with other anticonvulsant agents.     

Etiologic and Preventive Aspects of Epilepsy in the Child–Bridging the Gap Between Laboratory and Clinic

Summary: Four broad categories of basic phenomena are pertinent to developing ways to prevent epilepsy. These include mechanisms of epileptogenesis, ictal initiation and temporary entrainment by the seizure discharge of normally functioning brain, seizure propagation, and control mechanisms that function both to restrain the cascade of epileptic events culminating in a seizure and to arrest the epileptic event and restore the interictal state. In newborns and children, hypoxia-ischemia is a major factor leading to epileptogenesis, and several schemes are proposed to classify, quantify, and prevent hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. Control mechanisms must be better understood in order to develop prophylactic recommendations for epilepsy, and an experimental model of "kindling antagonism" may increase our understanding of these. Programs of prevention of seizures in children will evolve only if basic researchers and clinicians work productively together to develop an adequate understanding of factors important in epileptogenesis and antiepileptogenic control mechanisms.     

Carbamazepine Efficacy and Utilization in Children

Summary: Carbamazepine is effective for preventing partial and generalized tonic-clonic seizures in children. Although absence epilepsies are more common in children than adults, an estimated 80% of children with epilepsy have seizure types or epilepsies that are potentially responsive to carbamazepine. The differential diagnosis of ictal staring is an especially important issue in children because absence and atypical absence seizures are more prevalent in children than adults. Age-related pharmacokinetic differences and drug interactions are major considerations in children. On average, children have higher clearance rates of carbamazepine, shorter half-lives, and higher ratios of carbamazepine-10, 11-epoxide to carbamazepine than adults. In addition, children with severe epilepsy are more likely to require multiple-drug therapy, which can lead to complex drug interactions. When carbamazepine is administered along with valproate, drug protein binding interactions can cause intermittent side effects.     

Predisposing and Causative Factors in Childhood Epilepsy

Summary: We review information from large studies of defined populations, examining the role of known factors and especially of prenatal and perinatal factors in contributing to nonfebrile seizure disorders of early childhood. We depend especially, but not exclusively, on the recently completed analyses from the Collaborative Perinatal Project of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke, the NCPP. About 4% of children in the NCPP who had at least one non-febrile nonsymptomatic seizure by the age of 7 years had a previous seizure during acute neurologic illness, such as meningitis or during the acute illness after trauma. Many such seizures should potentially be preventable. Of children with seizures, 10% had had a neonatal seizure and 13% had had a febrile seizure. Among the hundreds of prenatal and perinatal factors explored as predictors of childhood seizure disorders, the principal predictors identified were congenital malformations of the fetus, cerebral and noncerebral; family history of certain neurologic disorders; and neonatal seizures. In agreement with the British National Child Development Study, labor and delivery factors in the NCPP appeared to contribute very little to childhood seizure disorders. Maldevelopment, rather than damage at birth to an initially intact nervous system, appeared to be the more common mechanism. Most seizure disorders of early childhood remained unexplained by the large set of prenatal and perinatal characteristics examined.     

Classification of methods in transcranial Electrical Stimulation (tES) and evolving strategy from historical approaches to contemporary innovations

Transcranial Electrical Stimulation (tES) encompasses all methods of non-invasive current application to the brain used in research and clinical practice. We present the first comprehensive and technical review, explaining the evolution of tES in both terminology and dosage over the past 100 years of research to present day. Current transcranial Pulsed Current Stimulation (tPCS) approaches such as Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation (CES) descended from Electrosleep (ES) through Cranial Electro-stimulation Therapy (CET), Transcerebral Electrotherapy (TCET), and NeuroElectric Therapy (NET) while others like Transcutaneous Cranial Electrical Stimulation (TCES) descended from Electroanesthesia (EA) through Limoge, and Interferential Stimulation. Prior to a contemporary resurgence in interest, variations of transcranial Direct Current Stimulation were explored intermittently, including Polarizing current, Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS), and Transcranial Micropolarization. The development of these approaches alongside Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) and pharmacological developments are considered. Both the roots and unique features of contemporary approaches such as transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) and transcranial Random Noise Stimulation (tRNS) are discussed. Trends and incremental developments in electrode montage and waveform spanning decades are presented leading to the present day. Commercial devices, seminal conferences, and regulatory decisions are noted. We conclude with six rules on how increasing medical and technological sophistication may now be leveraged for broader success and adoption of tES.     

Anticonvulsant Drugs and Cognitive Function: A Review of the Literature

Summary: Alterations of cognitive function are separate from disturbances of behavior seen in association with epilepsy. The nature of the cognitive disability may to a certain extent depend on the seizure type. Partial seizures, mainly derived from a temporal lobe focus, impair memory tasks, while generalized seizures seem to have more effect on attentional abilities. A number of studies, reviewed in this paper, suggest that anticonvulsant drugs further impair cognitive function. Maximal impairments are seen in patients receiving polytherapy: rationalization of polytherapy improves cognitive abilities. Studies in children and adults have allowed differentiation of the effects of various commonly used antiepileptic agents. Maximal cognitive deficits are seen with. phenytoin, while phenobarbital and sodium valproate induce moderate disturbances, and carbamazepine seems relatively free from such toxicity. Further research is needed on the interrelationship between types of seizure disorders, types of anticonvulsant medications, and cognitive function.     

Treatment Considerations in Anticonvulsant Monotherapy

Summary: The long-standing practice of polypharmacy in treating epilepsy is giving way to use of monotherapy. Monotherapy can improve seizure control as well as reduce the risk of serious idiosyncratic reactions, dose-related side effects, and complex drug interactions. Monotherapy also offers improved compliance and cost-effectiveness. The basis of monotherapy is accurate diagnosis and assessment of the patient's seizure type(s), followed by selection of a single appropriate anticonvulsant drug. Many patients currently treated with multiple anticonvulsants can be successfully converted to monotherapy with a carefully monitored program in which troublesome and redundant drugs are gradually withdrawn from the therapeutic regimen.     

Effects of NMD A- and AMPA-Receptor Antagonists on Different Forms of Epileptiform Activity in Rat Temporal Cortex Slices

Summary: Lowering extracellular magnesium induces different patterns of epileptiform activity in rat hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Short recurrent epileptiform discharges in the hippocampus are stable over time, whereas seizurelike events (SLEs) in the entorhinal cortex, the subiculum, and the neighboring neocortex develop into late recurrent discharges which are not blocked by clinically employed antiepileptic drugs. We tested the sensitivity of the different epileptiform discharge patterns to. /V-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)- and non-NMDA-receptor antagonists. As NMDA-receptor antagonist we used dextrorphan, ket-amine, and 2-aminophosphonovalerate (2APV); as α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole-propionic acid (AMPA)-receptor antagonist we employed the quinoxaline derivative glutamate 6-cyano-7-nitroquinoxaline-2,3-dione (CNQX). The findings show that the different patterns of epileptiform activity, including the late recurrent discharges, are sensitive to all NMDA-receptor antagonists. However, when dextrorphan was employed to suppress seizure-like events, later recurrent discharges did not develop during the remaining time course of the experiment. CNQX reversibly suppressed recurrent discharges in the hippocampus and SLEs in the entorhinal cortex. However, late recurrent discharges become insensitive to CNQX, even at a high concentration of 60 μM m. This finding suggests a prominent role for NMDA receptors in the generation of late recurrent discharges.     

Dextromethorphan: Cellular Effects Reducing Neuronal Hyperactivity

Summary: Dextromethorphan is a dextrorotary morphinan without affinity for opioid receptors, commonly used as an antitussive medication. During the past 5 years, interest in the compound and its demethylated derivative, dextrorphan, has been revived because additional neuroprotective and an-tiepileptic properties were found in in vitro studies, animal experiments, and a few clinical cases. Both morphinans are able to inhibit N -methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor channels and voltage-operated calcium and sodium channels with different potencies. The inhibition of the NMDA receptor is believed to be the predominant mechanism of action responsible for the anticonvulsant and neuroprotective properties of the compounds.     

Neonatal Seizures: Problems in Diagnosis and Classification

Summary: The clinical identification of neonatal seizures is critical for the recognition of brain dysfunction; however, diagnosis is often difficult because of the poorly organized and varied nature of these behaviors. Current classification systems are limited in their ability to communicate motor, autonomic, and electroencephalo-graphic features of seizures precisely and to provide a basis for uniform effective diagnosis, therapy, and determination of prognosis. Recent investigations of neonates, utilizing bedside electroencephalographic/polygraphic/ video monitoring techniques, have provided the basis for improved diagnosis and classification of seizures in the newborn. These studies have demonstrated that not all clinical phenomena currently considered to be seizures require electrocortical epileptiform activity for their initiation or elaboration. In addition, the specific clinical character of the phenomena considered to be seizures, the clinical state of the infant, and the character of the EEG indicate the probable pathophysiological mechanisms involved and suggest probable etiologies, prognosis, and therapy. Similarities between animal models that demonstrate reflex physiology and neonates with motor automatisms and tonic posturing suggest that these clinical behaviors may not be epileptic in origin but, rather, primitive movements of progression and posture mediated by brainstem mechanisms. Although not all clinical behaviors currently considered to be neonatal seizures may have similar pathophysiological mechanisms, they are clinically significant because they all indicate brain dysfunction.     

The influence of comorbid depression on seizure severity

PURPOSE: To determine the relation between depressive symptoms and seizure severity among people with epilepsy. METHODS: A postal questionnaire was used to survey a nationwide community sample about seizures and depression. The Seizure Severity Questionnaire (SSQ) assessed the severity and bothersomeness of seizure components. The Centers for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale categorized levels of depression. RESULTS: Respondents categorized as having current severe (SEV, n = 166), mild-moderate (MOD, n = 74), or no depression (NO, n = 443) differed significantly in SSQ scores (all p < 0.0001). People with SEV or MOD reported significantly worse problems than did those with NO depression for overall seizure recovery (mean, 5.3, 4.9, 4.5, respectively); overall severity (5.0, 4.5, 4.2); and overall seizure bother (5.3, 4.8, 4.4) (all p < 0.005). Cognitive, emotional, and physical aspects of seizure recovery also were rated worse among people with SEV than with NO depression (all p < 0.05). Symptoms of depression were significantly correlated with higher levels of all components of generalized tonic-clonic seizure severity (r = 0.33-0.48; all p < 0.0001), and partial seizures (r = 0.31-0.38; all p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Clinically depressed people with epilepsy reported higher levels of perceived severity and bother from seizures, as well as greater problems with overall seizure recovery than did nondepressed people experiencing similar types of seizures. The pervasive influence of depressive symptoms on reports of seizure activity suggests that people with epilepsy should be screened for depression. These data highlight the importance of detecting and treating depression among people with epilepsy.     

Valproate Monotherapy in the Management of Generalized and Partial Seizures

Summary: For decades, therapeutic tradition has promoted the concept of polypharmacy in the management of epilepsy. In recent years, however, studies have shown that, for most patients, monotherapy can provide comparable or better seizure control than administration of multiple anticonvulsants, while diminishing the potential for adverse reactions, drug interactions, and poor compliance. Valproate is an important monotherapeutic agent that is highly effective in the control of idiopathic primary and secondarily generalized epilepsies, and partial seizures that do not generalize. Comparative studies have found that valproate is at least as effective as phenytoin and carbamazepine in the treatment of generalized and partial seizures. Given the similar efficacy, other factors such as pharmacokinetics and side effects may therefore determine anticonvulsant selection for monotherapy.     

Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery

Summary: The use of implantable arrays of epidural electrodes has made it possible to carry out extraoperative electrocorticography (ECoG) and functional localization in the awake child. This has permitted cortical excisions that are determined by criteria similar to those obtained during surgical procedures performed under local anesthesia in adults. In addition, the method also permits simultaneous ECoG and video monitoring during the child's symptomatic seizures, providing additional important localizing information that is impractical to obtain in operations under local anesthesia. We report our experience with 75 children, ages 5 months to 15 years, whom we have managed with epidural electrode arrays. The method of extraoperative ECoG is described and illustrative cases are presented to demonstrate its feasibility and utility in children. In addition, we call attention to gliomas as a common cause of chronic focal seizures in children. Of 49 children undergoing resection and followed for from 1 to 14 years (mean of 5.8 years), 32 (65%) are either seizure free or have had a significant reduction in seizure frequency that has unambiguously improved their quality of life. The results are analyzed further by relating the surgical outcome to each of the pathologic entities that caused the seizures. This analysis reveals the variety of neurological conditions that commonly cause intractable focal seizure disorder in children and distinguishes those pathologic entities in which the seizure disorder is apt to respond to surgical intervention from those that will not.     

How to Initiate and Maintain Carbamazepine Therapy in Children and Adults

Summary: Appropriate use of carbamazepine for the treatment of epilepsy is based on correct identification of the patient's seizure type. Carbamazepine is effective against partial seizures and against generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Therapy should begin gradually, with initial doses increased slowly over 1 or 2 weeks, as tolerated. Side effects include fatigue, dizziness, ataxia, double vision, nausea, and vomiting. Most practitioners agree that, because of carbamazepine's relatively short half-life, the total dosage should be administered in at least two divided doses. This avoids too high a peak blood level that would occur with a single dose. Carbamazepine therapy is associated with the development of two hematologic conditions. Leukopenia, which may be transient or persistent, requires careful monitoring but is not cause for immediate discontinuation of therapy. Aplastic anemia occurs rarely but is potentially fatal, and therefore diligent monitoring of hematologic function is indicated. Aplastic anemia is an idiosyncratic, non-dose-related side effect that is most likely to occur within the first 3 or 4 months of initiating therapy. Once seizures are controlled, plasma levels of carbamazepine should be measured to establish optimum levels for individual patients being treated with this drug.