NEOPLASM study: Real-life use of lacosamide in patients with brain tumor-related epilepsy.

BACKGROUND: The choice of antiepileptic drug (AED) therapy in patients with brain tumor-related epilepsy (BTRE) is complicated, and there are a lack of robust clinical trial data to date. METHODS: The NEOPLASM (Neuroncologic Patients treated with LAcoSaMide) study was a 6-month, multicenter, retrospective, observational study in patients with BTRE treated with lacosamide. Patients were started on lacosamide because of a lack of efficacy or adverse events (AEs) with prior AEDs or suitability versus other AEDs, according to clinical practice. The primary efficacy variable was the seizure-free rate at 6months. Safety variables included the proportion of patients with an AE and the proportion with an AE that led to discontinuation. RESULTS: Overall, 105 patients from 14 hospital centers were included in the analysis. Treatment with lacosamide for 6months resulted in a 30.8% seizure-free rate, and 66.3% of patients had a ≥50% seizure reduction (responders). In the subset of patients included because of a lack of efficacy with prior AEDs, seizure-free rates were 28.0%, and 66.7% of patients were responders. No statistically significant differences in efficacy were observed according to the mechanism of action or enzyme-inducing properties of concomitant AEDs. Adverse events were reported by 41.9% of patients at 6months, and 4.7% of them led to discontinuation. The most common AEs were somnolence/fatigue and dizziness. Notably, 57.1% of the patients who were switched to lacosamide because of AEs with their previous therapy did not report any AE at 6-month follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: In this open-label, observational study, lacosamide appeared to be effective and well tolerated in a large population of patients with BTRE. Lacosamide may therefore be a promising option for the treatment of patients with BTRE.

Rational polytherapy with lacosamide in clinical practice: results of a Spanish cohort analysis RELACOVA.

There has been little long-term success with polytherapy for patients with refractory partial-onset epilepsy. The rational combination of antiepileptic drugs based on their mechanism of action may help improve treatment efficacy and tolerability. Lacosamide, a novel sodium channel blocker (SCB), was investigated in 158 patients with partial-onset epilepsy in the prospective, multicenter, observational, RELACOVA cohort study conducted in Spain. After 12 months' treatment with lacosamide, 47% of patients were responders (≥50% reduction in seizure frequency) and 24% were seizure free. Lacosamide was well tolerated; dizziness was the most frequent adverse event. Efficacy was better (responder rate, 65% vs 38%; seizure free rate, 35% vs 17%) and there was a lower adverse event rate (33% vs 58%) in patients receiving non-SCBs (n=49) versus those receiving SCBs (n=104) as concomitant therapy at baseline. Further investigation of lacosamide combination therapy is warranted.

Bilateral inferior frontal language-related activation correlates with verbal recall in patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy and typical language distribution.

Language fMRI has been used in the presurgical evaluation of drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy patients. Previous studies have demonstrated that left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE) patients with atypical language lateralization are at lower risk of postsurgical verbal memory decline, hypothesizing co-occurrence of verbal memory and language reorganization presurgically. Furthermore, it has been proposed that the recruitment of right frontal language-related areas is associated with the preservation of verbal memory performance in these patients. However, less is known about the correlation between these functions specifically in LTLE patients with left language dominance, although they are more prone to postsurgical verbal memory decline. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the relationship between verbal memory scores and frontal language activation is also observed in LTLE patients with typical language dominance. Eighteen healthy controls, 12 right temporal lobe epilepsy patients and 12 LTLE patients with typical language distribution as assessed by an fMRI verbal fluency task were selected. Verbal memory scores were obtained from the patients' neuropsychological presurgical evaluation. Our results showed a positive correlation between verbal recall and activation of bilateral inferior frontal areas in LTLE patients. These results support the hypothesis of a link between language representation in inferior frontal areas and hippocampal functioning, and indicate that both hemispheres are related to the preservation of verbal memory in patients with hippocampal damage and typical language dominance.

Application of chemometric tools for automatic classification and profile extraction of DNA samples in forensic tasks.

In this paper a method for the automatic DNA spots classification and extraction of profiles associated in DNA polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis is presented and it integrates the use of image processing techniques and chemometrics tools. A software which implements this method was developed; for feature extraction a combination of a PCA analysis and a C4.5 decision tree were used. To obtain good results in the profile extraction only DNA spots are useful; therefore, it was necessary to solve a two-class classification problem among DNA spots and no-DNA spots. In order to perform the classification process with high velocity, effectiveness and robustness, comparative classification studies among support vector machine (SVM), K-NN and PLS-DA classifiers were made. The best results obtained with the SVM classifier demonstrated the advantages attributed to it in the literature as a two-class classifier. A Sequential Cluster Leader Algorithm and another one developed for the restoration of pattern missing spots were needed to conclude the profiles extraction step. The experimental results show that this method has a very effective computational behavior and effectiveness, and provide a very useful tool to decrease the time and increase the quality of the specialist responses.