First results of intravenous levetiracetam use in Turkey [Intravenöz levetirasetam kullaniminin Türkiye'deki ilk sonuçlari]

Objective: status epilepticus is a neurological emergency feature with a risk of high mortality and morbidity which requires immediate intervention. many of the medications used in standard treatment have systemic side effects. levetiracetam (lev) is one of the new antiepileptic agents which are not metabolized through the liver and have minimal drug interaction. positive outcomes with intravenous (iv) form of lev on patients with refractory seizures and status have been reported. methods: in this study,we evaluated 12 patients with status epilepticus between the ages 23 and 78 who were administrated iv lev in the emergency department of neurology,retrospectively. patients were classified according to the clinical characteristics of their seizures and iv lev was given to patients who did not respond to intravenous diazepam in the dose range 1000-2000 mg. results: it has been observed that patients with systemic problems who were admitted to the neurology service did not respond very well to iv lev treatment whereas the patients on antiepileptic drugs who were referred to the emergency department benefited significantly from lev. conclusions: although our study involves a limited number of patients on whom effects iv lev were examined,our results concur with previous reports similarly small number of cases in the literature. the first study of its kind in turkey,we would like to contribute to literature with our experience of iv lev in status epilepticus.