TO COMPARE EFFICACY, TOLERABILITY AND QUALITY OF LIFE WITH CONVENTIONAL AND NEWER ANTIEPILEPTIC AS MONOTHERAPY IN NEWLY DIAGNOSED PATIENTS OF EPILEPSY.

Abstract

Background: Quality of life plays an important role in patients of epilepsy and is the most neglected part during management. The antiepileptic drugs treatment results in seizure control but adversely affect the quality of life in patients on drugs taken for the treatment of epilepsy An observational analytical study was conducted in the Department of pharmacology withMethods: Department of Neurology of Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences, Dehradun over one year. Total of 120 patients fullling the inclusion criteria with diagnosis of epilepsy were enrolled and divided into two groups based on physicians discretion . Group A were on the conventional antiepileptic drugs , group B received the newer antiepileptic drugs and followed up for 12 weeks. Patients were evaluated for quality of life by QOLIE-10 questionnaire at baseline and 12 weeks, assessed for seizure control and drug related adverse effects. There was signicantResults: improvement in quality of life, in both the groups as compared to baseline (p<0.05) at 12 weeks but there was not signicant change in quality of life in conventional and newer groups. The patients who reported total seizure freedom at 6 weeks was 93% and 90% for older and newer groups respectively .Both groups achieved complete seizure control at 12 weeks. Adverse events reported in patients on conventional groups were more as compared to newer group. Quality of life improved in both group of patients on newer and conventional antiepileptic drugs, withConclusions: similar seizure control but decreased number of adverse effect of newer than on conventional antiepileptic drugs .