Assessment of efficacy and safety of eslicarbazepine acetate for the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia.

BACKGROUND: Antiepileptic drugs are the first-line treatment for trigeminal neuralgia (TN). Carbamazepine and oxcarbazepine are the most studied with well-known efficacy. Eslicarbazepine acetate is a third-generation antiepileptic drug that has not previously been evaluated for the treatment of TN. We aim to assess the efficacy, tolerability and safety of eslicarbazepine for TN. DESIGN AND METHODS: Retrospective, open-label, multicentric, intention-to-treat study. We included patients older than 18 years who met the ICHD-3 beta diagnostic criteria for TN. We evaluated the variation of intensity and frequency of pain paroxysms before and after treatment with eslicarbazepine. Secondary objectives assessed were tolerability and safety of eslicarbazepine. RESULTS: Eighteen patients were included, 15 women, mean age 65.2 years old, mean follow-up 21.1 months. The mean number of drugs tested before eslicarbazepine was 2; 10 patients used eslicarbazepine as monotherapy. After the treatment with ESL, the median of pain intensity improved from 9.5 to 2.5 (p < 0.001) and the median of pain paroxysms frequency improved from 70 episodes per week to 0.37 (p < 0.001). Responder rate was 88.9%; 44.4% became asymptomatic after treatment. Sixty-one per cent of patients presented some adverse event; four patients discontinued eslicarbazepine for this reason. Despite this, 16 patients (88.9%) noticed a good subjective tolerance to eslicarbazepine. The retention rate at 6 months was 77.8% and at 12 months 61.1%. CONCLUSIONS: Our study supports the hypothesis that eslicarbazepine acetate is an effective, safe and well-tolerated treatment for the treatment of TN. Further studies are warranted to corroborate these results. SIGNIFICANCE: Eslicarbazepine acetate has shown to be an effective, safe and well-tolerated drug for TN. This is the first study that evaluated the efficacy of this drug on TN in humans.

[Non-motor disorders in Parkinson's disease: introduction and general features]. / Trastornos no motores de la enfermedad de Parkinson: introducción y generalidades.

INTRODUCTION: Two hundred years ago James Parkinson accurately described the disease that bears his name today, focusing not only on motor aspects but also on non-motor symptoms suffered by these patients. DEVELOPMENT: Non-motor symptoms are prevalent and decrease the quality of life of the patients with Parkinson's disease. In recent years, some non-motor scales have been developed to avoid the problem of underdiagnosis. Moreover, some of them have been proposed as clinical predictors for Parkinson's disease and it is has been suggested that individuals with any of these non-motor symptoms and without motor manifestations of the disease could be the aim for neuroprotective therapies when they become available. CONCLUSIONS: Non-motor symptoms are prevalent and have a great impact in the quality of life of patients. Therefore, it is important to detect and treat them. Their role as predictors of the disease is unclear yet.

[Paroxysmal dyskinesias]. / Discinesias paroxísticas.

INTRODUCTION: Paroxysmal dyskinesias are uncommon movements disorders that consist on recurrent brief episodes characterized by attacks with any combination of dystonia, chorea, athetosis or ballismus. DEVELOPMENT AND CONCLUSIONS: The pathophysiology of paroxysmal dyskinesias is unclear at the present time. An epileptic mechanism and basal ganglia disorders have been proposed although channelopathy due to ion channel mutations have been recently suggested. These disorders were classified by Demirkiran and Jankovic into two main groups: paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia if the attacks were induced by sudden movement and paroxysmal nonkinesigenic dyskinesia if they were not. In addition to these groups, two more types have been known, namely paroxysmal exercise-induced dyskinesia and hypnogenic paroxysmal dyskinesia. As well association between benign infantile familial convulsions and paroxysmal choreoathetosis, or rolandic epilepsy, episodes of exercise induced dystonia, and writers' cramp have been described. Also others paroxysmal movements disorders have been known, we mention below. Paroxysmal dyskinesias can further be divided into idiopathic (familiar in most of the cases) or secondary cases depending on underlying cause.