[Administration of a single oral high-dose of diazepam at bedtime as therapy for intractable seizures]

Recently the usage of diazepam as an anticonvulsant has been reduced. But, in this report, the effect of diazepam in the treatment of infantile spasms and intractable epilepsies were reported. Single high-dose oral administration of diazepam at bedtime was tried to the patients with intractable seizures. There were good responses to the therapy of partial seizures and infantile spasms basically escaping from hypsarhythmia. The therapeutic range of blood concentration was not decided, but probably the following values are necessary; over 200 nl/ml for partial seizures and over 300 ng/ml for infantile spasms 2 hours after the administration. Plasma level of diazepam during the daytime was very low, but the seizures were controlled sufficiently.