[Carbamazepine (Tegretol) monotherapy in epilepsies with partial and/or secondary generalized seizures in childhood and adolescence].

The effectiveness and side effects of a carbamazepine monotherapy were evaluated in 40 children and adolescents (22 boys and 18 girls with an age distribution between 1 and 16 years) over a period of 6 years. In addition the attempt has been made, to find correlations between sex, age of seizure onset, aetiology of the disease, types of seizures, and EEG-abnormalities on the one hand, and the clinical response to the drug on the other. Selection criteria were, that the patients were under continuous follow-up, that they suffered from partial or/and secondarily generalized seizures and that Tegretol was the first and only drug at the beginning of the examination. The treatment with the Carbamazepine-monotherapy was successful in 63% of the patients, 37% remained resistant to the treatment. Carbamazepine proved to be effective against partial seizures as well as secondarily generalized grand-mal-seizures. The therapeutic range of the serum carbamazepine levels during monotherapy varied between 15-35 mu Mol/l. 40 patients entered, 38 completed the study. In two cases the drug had to be stopped owing to allergic skin rash due to the drug. No other serious side effects were observed in any of the remaining 38 patients. The most frequent laboratory changes were an increase of Gamma-GT and leucopenia. All the cases who became seizure-free (Responder) were compared with the remaining cases with unfavourable treatment results (Nonresponder) in order to find out whether there are significant differences between the two groups, as far as sex, age ... etc. (see above) are concerned.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)