Emerging Antiepileptic Drugs for Severe Pediatric Epilepsies

The medical management of the epilepsy syndromes of early childhood (eg, infantile spasms, Dravet syndrome, and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome) is challenging; and requires careful evaluation, classification, and treatment. Pharmacologic therapy continues to be the mainstay of management for these children, and as such it is important for the clinician to be familiar with the role of new antiepileptic drugs. This article reports the clinical trial data and personal experience in treating the severe epilepsies of childhood with the recently Food and Drug Administration-approved new antiepileptic drugs (vigabatrin, rufinamide, perampanel, and clobazam) and those in clinical trials (cannabidiol, stiripentol, and fenfluramine). Genetic research has also identified an increasing number of pediatric developmental and seizure disorders that are possibly treatable with targeted drug therapies, focused on correcting underlying neural dysfunction. We highlight recent genetic advances, and how they affect our treatment of some of the genetic epilepsies, and speculate on the use of targeted genetic treatment (precision medicine) in the future.