Modern treatments for epilepsy would not be any more effective than the former

dusan964/epictura

Published the 27.12.2017 at 15h26

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épilepsietraitement

500,000 people are living with epilepsy in France. The crises are unpredictable, which makes the disease a particularly disabling. Since several tens of years, drug treatments have multiplied and evolved. In 2000, a study showed, however, that more than one-third of the patients could not well manage and control seizures in spite of the follow-up of a modern treatment.
Researchers in the us are interested in the evolution of these treatments on the last thirty years. The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In twenty years, a dozen new treatment anti-epileptic drugs have appeared on the american market.

No significant change to the effectiveness of the treatments

1795 people, who have followed a treatment with anti-epileptic between July 1982 and October 2012, participated in the study. Among them, 66.7 per cent have not been seizure-free for at least a year before the end of the study. For more than one-third of epilepsy patients, seizures remain uncontrolled. But almost 90% of them were able to control their seizures with anti-epileptic drugs in first-or second-generation.
Thus, the new epilepsy treatments are not more effective than treatments older. In addition, more patients try new treatments, the less they are effective in controlling seizures.

In June of last year, british researchers discovered a protein which could just help the patients, who respond poorly to treatment, better withstand the medication.