Efficacy and Tolerability of Lacosamide for Focal Epileptic Patients: Study from Epilepsy Clinic in Makkah.

Background: Lacosamide is characterized by its novel dual mode of action on account of its structural components; its molecule contains a functional amino acid that selectively and slowly promotes the inactivation of voltage-gated sodium channels.

Objective: This study aims to assess the effectiveness and tolerability of Lacosamide with respect to its use in the treatment of focal epileptic patients.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study used data collected from the clinical notes or diaries of all epileptic patients who were treated in King Abdullah Medical City during the time period from 2014 to 2019. The multivariate Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) repeated measure logistic regression analysis was used to assess the odds of having an improvised seizure rate.

Results: Majority of the focal epileptic patients (57.9%) were diagnosed with temporal epilepsy, while 26.3% patients had frontal epileptic lesion/diagnoses. Majority of the patients (54.4%) had received a combination of old and new treatment. Out of the seven patients who reported side effects, 57.14% experienced dizziness and headache, tremors (n = 1), loss of balance (n = 1) and increased seizure with abnormal vision acuity and psychosis (n = 1). 84.2% patients experienced reduced median seizure frequency in 12-month period. However, on the basis of clinical characteristics, no significant difference was observed in the seizure control rate. No statistically significant differences were observed between male and female patients with respect to their average improvement rate across the four time points.

Conclusion: Lacosamide is an effective and well tolerable drug for patients with focal epilepsy.