Advancing pharmacologic treatment options for pharmacologic treatment options for children with epilepsy

Introduction: The pharmacological management of epilepsy is continually modified by the increase in our knowledge about the efficacy and the safety on antiepileptic drugs.

Areas covered: This review covers the published data (2010–2015) on the pharmacological management of epilepsy in children and adolescent. We review the data from the most recent randomized controlled and open-label trials.

Expert opinion: Even if there is an increasing number of antiepileptic drugs approved for focal seizure in children and adolescent with epilepsy, each new approval would be considered as a significant addition to the current therapeutic options. Refractory epilepsy with focal seizure should not be regarded as a single disease but as numerous various patients. Because most of evidence of efficacy is primarily from placebo-controlled trials, there is no evidence to choose a treatment based on efficacy. In case of focal seizure, we explain how possible cognitive impact, mechanisms of action, pharmacologic characteristics and side effect profile are the factors taken into an account to propose a treatment. In case of childhood absence epilepsy, there are evidences showing the ethosuximide should be the first line treatment. Finally, we stress that trials in the pediatric epilepsy syndromes are required to propose better evidence-based pharmacological management.