UCB's Keppra effective in infant seizure study

Belgian pharmaceutical group UCB says that, in a Phase III study, its oral antiepileptic Keppra (levetiracetam) reduced the frequency of partial onset seizures in pediatric patients, compared with placebo. The firm added that the results were consistent across all stratified age groups.

The study was a randomized, double-blind assessment of the efficacy and safety of the drug when used as an adjunctive therapy in the reduction of seizures which recruited 116 epileptic infants between one month and four years of age. The results showed that 43.1% of the drug-treated patients experienced a 50% reduction in seizure frequency during the five-day evaluation period, versus 19.6% of subjects in the placebo group.

Commenting on the results, Jesus Pina-Garza, professor of pediatric neurology at the Vanderbilt University in Nashville, USA, said: "there are very few studies assessing antiepileptic drug efficacy in infants...Keppra was shown to be more efficacious than placebo in controlling partial seizures in infants and young children with treatment resistant partial onset epilepsies."