Orphan drugs in epilepsy

Orphan Drugs in Epilepsy

More than half of the epilepsies begin before the age of 20 and almost 25% of these are intractable. Epilepsy in children is different from epilepsy in aldults. Indeed, seizures occur in various age-dependent syndromes, they are part of epilepsy and syndrome phenotypes not seen in adults, and in addition occur at an age of brain maturation and differentiation.

Rare diseases occur in less than 200,000 individuals in the United States, or less than 5 per 10,000 individuals in the European Union. Thus the development of new drugs to treat this small population of patients is slowed down because of the expense risk. However, various drugs called « orphan drugs » have been allocated for the treatment of some epilepsy syndromes in childhood with grave prognosis.

This book on pharmacological and clinical aspects of orphan antiepileptic drugs is unique. It is divided into six chapters that cover various pharmacological and clinical issues of orphan antiepileptic drugs used in the treatment of some devastating epileptic syndromes so-called epileptic encephalopathies.

While there is a need to develop new drugs having a specific action in this age group. This book book written by experts in the field of epileptology offers valuable information about orphan drugs and their approved clinical use.