| "People with newly diagnosed epilepsy experienced few, if any, seizures while taking the drug levetiracetam as a single therapy, giving hope to epilepsy patients who don't respond to or can't tolerate existing treatments, according to a study published in the February 6, 2007 issue of " " For the multi-center, double-blind study, researchers assigned nearly 600 adults who had at least two seizures in the previous year to the drug levetiracetam or to controlled-release carbamazepine, a common epilepsy treatment. While levetiracetam is currently used as an add-on therapy by epilepsy patients, this is the first time its effectiveness as a single therapy has been tested through a clinical trial that provided class 1 evidence of efficacy as defined by the International League Against Epilepsy." " The study found 73 percent of people taking levetiracetam and 72.8 percent of people receiving controlled-release carbamazepine remained seizure free for at least six months." " "Both drugs produced equivalent seizure freedom rates in newly diagnosed epilepsy. Levetiracetam helps fill a need for safe and well-tolerated, easy-to-use epilepsy drugs, particularly because more than 30 percent of patients do not achieve seizure control with existing treatments," said study author Martin Brodie, MD, with the Western Infirmary Epilepsy Unit in Glasgow, Scotland." " Of those remaining seizure free for six months, the study also found 80.1
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