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Effects of levetiracetam monotherapy on the cognitive function of epilepsy patients
Dae Lim Koo1, Kyoung Jin Hwang, Daeyoung Kim
1Department of Neurology, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Samsung Biomedical Research Institute, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Aims:
To estimate the effect of levetiracetam (LEV) on cognitive function and mood status in newly diagnosed epilepsy patients.
Methods:
Fifty-five drug-naïve epilepsy patients (M:F ratio = 31:24; mean age = 30.9 years) were included. All patients underwent two neuropsychological (NP) tests, one before receiving LEV and then another 12.9 ± 5.0 months after starting LEV monotherapy. We evaluated general cognitive function, verbal/visual attention and memory, linguistic and visuospatial functions, frontal lobe function, and mood status. Repeated-measures regression and generalized estimating equation models were applied to assess the effects of all the confounding variables such as seizure control, average LEV dose, duration of epilepsy, inter-test interval, and subtype of epilepsy syndrome.
Results:
LEV monotherapy over 1 year revealed significant improvements in the following domains of NP tests with the correction of possible confounding variables: verbal and visual attention, psychomotor speed, mental flexibility, executive function, verbal fluency and word generation. No NP domains showed any significant decrease.
Conclusion:
Our study suggested that LEV monotherapy had no harmful effect on cognitive function in drug-naïve patients with epilepsy.
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