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Half pitch lower sound perception caused by carbamazepine

Shyu Konno1, Etsuko Yamazaki, Masako Kudoh

  • 1Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Iwate Medical University, Uchimaru, Morioka.

Internal Medicine (Tokyo, Japan)
|October 2, 2003
PubMed

We report a 16-year-old woman with secondary generalization of partial seizure, who complained of an auditory disturbance after carbamazepine (CBZ) administration. She had been taking sodium valproate (VPA) from the age of 15. However, her seizures remained poorly controlled. We changed her antiepileptic drug from VPA to CBZ. At 1 week after CBZ administration, she noticed that electone musical performances were heard as a semitone lower. When oral administration of CBZ was stopped, her pitch perception returned to normal. If she had not been able to discern absolute pitch, she might have been unable to recognize her lowered pitch perception. Auditory disturbance caused by CBZ is reversible and very rare.

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