Treatment of childhood epilepsies: Japanese Expert Consensus study and a comparison of the results with those of the USA and EU
We conducted a Japanese Expert Consensus (EC) study for the treatment of childhood epilepsies following the method reported from the USA and EU (Wheless JW, et al., 2005, 2007), and compared the results to reveal differences in the choice of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs). The subjects were 41 pediatric board-certified epileptologists who responded to the 23 questionnaires. A 9-point scale was used to grade each AED, in which 9 was the best whereas 1 was the worst for appropriateness of choice for each epileptic syndrome. Lamotrigine (LTG) is frequently used for idiopathic generalized epilepsy except for valproate sodium (VPA) in both the USA and EU, while VPA and clonazepam were the main AEDs in Japan. For cryptogenic complex partial epilepsy and benign focal epilepsy, carbamazepine was a first-line AED among the USA, EU, and Japan, although other first-line AEDs were oxcarbamazepine (OCBZ), LTG, and levetiracetam (LEV) in both the USA and EU, while it was zonisamide in Japan. Regarding the treatment for symptomatic generalized epilepsy, West syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, VPA and ACTH were first-line AEDs commonly used in the USA, EU, and Japan, while the other first-line AEDs were topiramate (TPM) and LTG in the USA and EU, and CZP and clobazam in Japan. This Japanese EC study demonstrated the difference in the selection of AEDs for epileptic syndromes between the USA and EU, which use more newly-introduced AEDs including TPM, LTG, OCBZ and LEV as first-and second-line AEDs, and Japan.