gamma Vinyl GABA: current role in the management of drug-resistant epilepsy

The goal of management in epilepsy is to make patients completely seizure-free without side effects. Currently, this goal can be achieved fully in only about one-half of the 50,000,000 people in the world with epilepsy. Epilepsy is not a benign condition. Uncontrolled epilepsy produces significant morbidity and mortality. Even infrequent seizures put a patient at risk of sudden death and compromise employability and other social functions. The potential risk of a new antiepileptic drug has to be weighted against the potential risk of continuing seizures and the potential for the new drug to control those seizures. Vigabatrin (gamma vinyl GABA, GVG) is one of the promising new antiepileptic drugs now under development. In four large clinical trials half of the patients in each trial had a greater than or equal to 50% reduction in seizure frequency when GVG was added to existing antiepileptic drug. This represents a significant response rate in add-on trials, which are a severe test of a new antiepileptic drug. Although microvacuoles have been seen in the white matter of the brains of rats and dogs treated with GVG, such pathological changes have not yet been observed in humans. Evoked potential studies have failed to reveal any evidence of microvacuolization in humans. Because of the potential efficacy of GVG in controlling previously therapeutic-resistant seizures and of the absence of evidence of significant toxicity in humans, carefully monitored clinical trials of GVG in therapy-resistant patients with epilepsy should continue.