EEC 2022 | Eslicarbazepine for treating therapy-refractory status epilepticus

Yaroslav Winter, MD, Mainz Comprehensive Epilepsy and Sleep Medicine Center, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, outlines the urgent need for new treatment options for therapy refractory status epilepticus. Dr Winter set out to collect data on eslicarbazepine, a novel sodium channel blocker, in 64 such patients in an observational study. Here, they compared the etiology of status epilepticus to find out if eslicarbazepine would have a better efficacy in a specific type of status epilepticus. 45% of patients’ status epilepticus could be interrupted within 48 hours of eslicarbazepine therapy, but importantly, the best efficacy was observed in post-stroke status epilepticus. This is evident by 62% of patients with post-stroke epilepsy having their status epilepticus interrupted by eslicarbazepine. This interview took place at the 14th European Epilepsy Congress (EEC) 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland.