Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 

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INTRAVENOUS LEVETIRACETAM AS SECOND LINE OPTION FOR STATUS EPILEPTICUS

AURELIAN UNGUREANU1, LUCA LIVIU RUS2*, FELICIA GABRIELA GLIGOR2, ANA LĂZĂROAE1, LIIANA PRODAN1, CORINA ROMAN-FILIP1,3

1.Department of Neurology, Academic Emergency Hospital Sibiu, 2-4 Pompeiu Onofreiu Street, 550166, Sibiu, Romania
2.Preclinical Department, Faculty of Medicine, “Lucian Blaga” University, 2A Lucian Blaga Street, 550169, Sibiu, Romania
3.Department of Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, “Lucian Blaga” University, 2A Lucian Blaga Street, 550169, Sibiu, Romania

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Status epilepticus (SE) and seizure clusters (SC) are life-threatening acute neurologic disorders and represent medical emergencies, requiring rapid and effective treatment. We studied retrospectively 67 patients admitted in our Neurological Intensive Care Unit, with SE or SC between December 2011 and January 2016 and we analysed the efficacy and tolerability of intravenous (IV) administration of levetiracetam (LEV) for SE and SC. The indications for IV LEV as second line treatment were SE or SC unresponsive to IV diazepam and the presence of co-morbidities that made phenytoin administration unsafe. IV LEV was administered as second line therapy immediately after no response from 10 mg of IV diazepam, in a maximum dose of 3000 mg/day. Unresponsive patients or patients at risk required general anaesthesia. The cessation of seizures within 3 hours, relations between variables and adverse events were evaluated. In 86.9% of the cases (58 patients), SE stopped within 3 h. Our study showed that IV LEV is an effective treatment for refractory SE or SC of different etiology.