Refilling and switching of antiepileptic drugs and seizure-related events.
Clin Pharmacol Ther
; 88(3): 347-53, 2010 Sep.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-20631693
ABSTRACT
We sought to estimate the risk of seizure-related events associated with refilling prescriptions for antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and to estimate the effect of switching between brand-name and generic drugs or between two generic versions of the same drug. We conducted a case-crossover study using health-care databases from British Columbia, Canada, among AED users who had an emergency room visit or hospitalization for seizure (index seizure-related event), defined using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9) codes 345.xx (epilepsy and recurrent seizures) and 780.3x (convulsions), between 1997 and 2005. AED prescription refilling itself was associated with 2.3-fold elevated odds of seizure-related events when the refill occurred within 21 days before the index event (odds ratio (OR) 2.31; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.56-3.44). The OR was 2.75 (95% CI 0.88-8.64) for refills that involved switching, yielding a refill-adjusted OR for switching of 1.19 (95% CI 0.35-3.99). Refilling the same AED prescription was associated with an elevated risk of seizure-related events whether or not the refill involved switching from a brand-name to a generic product.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Seizures
/
Drugs, Generic
/
Epilepsy
/
Anticonvulsants
Type of study:
Clinical_trials
/
Etiology_studies
/
Observational_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Limits:
Adolescent
/
Adult
/
Child
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Country/Region as subject:
America do norte
Language:
En
Journal:
Clin Pharmacol Ther
Year:
2010
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
United States