Effectiveness and safety of Lacosamide in pediatric patients with epilepsy under four years: Results from a prospective cohort study in China.

BACKGROUND: Lacosamide (LCM) has shown promising efficacy and safety outcomes in clinical trials. However, the evidence is limited among pediatric patients especially under four years in real-world. The study investigated the treatment outcomes and safety of LCM in patients under four years based on the data of the epilepsy registry of Children in China. METHODS: A prospective cohort study was conducted among patients under 4 years who newly received LCM as monotherapy or adjunctive therapy. The treatment outcomes were measured by retention rate of LCM, 50 % response rates and seizure-free rates during follow-up. The retention rate of LCM was assessed using the Kaplan-Meier survival model. Adverse events were reported as a percentage of all participants. RESULTS: Of 109 participants (mean follow-up: 18.6 months), 59 received LCM as monotherapy and 50 as adjunctive therapy. Sixty patients had focal epilepsy, 44 had generalized epilepsy and 5 had combined generalized and focal epilepsy. 70 % of patients in the monotherapy group and 41 % in the adjunctive therapy group remained on LCM treatment without additional treatments for at least one year. In patients with monotherapy, 50 % response rate and seizure-free rate were 75 % and 56 % at 12 months, respectively. In adjunctive therapy group, these rates were 51 % and 36 %, respectively. Lower baseline seizure frequency in both treatment groups (monotherapy: p < 0.001; adjunctive therapy: p = 0.02) and younger age groups within the monotherapy group (P = 0.04) correlated with a higher LCM retention rate. Adverse events were reported by 15 patients (13.8 %), with somnolence being the most common (7 of 15 patients). CONCLUSION: With a comprehensive information and high-quality of data, the study demonstrates the effective treatment outcome and safety of LCM. The study adds reliable evidence to exiting real-word evidence of LCM in the specific age group of patients with epilepsy to fill the evidence gap.

CaF2 nanoparticles as peroxidase mimics for rapid and sensitive detection of aldosterone.

In this work, CaF2 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by a simple direct precipitation method and firstly used as a peroxidase mimics for rapid and high sensitive colorimetric detection of aldosterone. The CaF2 nanoparticles were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD). The CaF2 nanoparticles can oxidize 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine (TMB) to produce a blue product oxidized TMB (oxTMB) in the presence of H2O2 and this peroxidase-like activity of CaF2 is found out to follow Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Experiments showed that the catalytic mechanism of CaF2 nanoparticles was attributed to that it could result in the decomposition of H2O2 to produce hydroxyl radicals (•OH). The absorbance change value of the reaction system was linear with the aldosterone concentration in the range of 2.0-40.0 nM, and the detection limit was 0.6 nM. Moreover, the developed method was applied to detect aldosterone in human serum samples. It provides a new platform for enzyme functional simulation and analytical sensing research.

An electrochemical sarcosine sensor based on biomimetic recognition.

A nonenzymatic electrochemical sensor is described for the prostate cancer biomarker sarcosine (Sar). Riboflavin was employed to mimic the active center of the enzyme sarcosine oxidase for constructing the biomimetic sensor. The use of riboflavon (Rf) avoids the disadvantages of an enzymatic sensor, such as high cost and poor stability. A glassy carbon electrode (GCE) was modified with a graphene-chitosan (GR) composite and further modified with gold-platinum bimetallic nanoparticles in a polypyrrole (PPy) matrix in order to enhance the catalytic activity of the enzyme mimic. Finally, Rf was electrodeposited on the surface of the AuPt-PPy/GR-modified GCE. Under optimized conditions, the GCE provided high sensitivity and selectivity for Sar at around 0.61 V. Response covers the 2.5-600 µM concentration range, and the detection limit is 0.68 µM. The method was successfully applied to the determination of Sar in spiked urine with 98.0%-103.2% recovery. Graphical abstract Schematic presentation of the fabrication of the Rf/AuPt-PPy/GR/GCE surface and the measurement principle by differential pulse voltammetry (DPV).