Efficacy and safety of perampanel as the first add-on therapy for children with epilepsy: A real-world multicenter prospective observational study

Objective: Perampanel (PER) is a new anti-seizure medication (ASM) with a novel mechanism of action. This study aimed to determine the efficacy and safety of PER when added to monotherapy in children and adolescents (age, 4-18 years) with epilepsy.

Method: A multicenter prospective observational study was performed on children and adolescents (age, 4-18 years) with epilepsy who did not respond to ASM monotherapy between July 2021 and October 2022. PER was used as the first add-on therapy for the enrolled patients. Seizure-free rate, response rate, inefficacy rate, and drug retention rate were the main observation indicators during the 6 months of treatment. The patients were grouped based on treatment efficacy, and factors affecting efficacy were statistically analyzed. Adverse reactions were also recorded.

Results: In this study, 93 patients with epilepsy were enrolled; among them, 9 patients were lost to follow-up (attrition rate, 9.7 %), and 84 were included in the analysis. Five patients with unknown efficacy discontinued taking PER early due to intolerable adverse reactions, and 79 patients (48 males, 31 females; mean age, 11.0 ± 3.9 years) finally remained. Genetic epilepsy and structural epilepsy were found in 22 patients and 36 patients, respectively. The mean duration of epilepsy history at the time of PER initiation was 4.0 ± 3.8 years, and the mean maintenance dosage of add-on PER was 4.5 ± 1.8 mg/day (equivalent to 0.14 ± 0.07 mg/kg/day). Among the 79 patients, 28 patients were diagnosed with epilepsy syndrome, including 13 patients having self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes, among whom 9 patients were seizure-free after adding PER during the 6-month follow-up (seizure-free rate, 69.2 %). For these 79 patients, the seizure-free, response, and retention rates at the end of follow-up were 45.6 %, 74.7 %, and 82.1 %, respectively. Among the 84 patients included in the analyses, adverse reactions occurred in 20 patients, mainly dizziness (8 patients), somnolence (6 patients), and irritability (4 patients), and 4 patients developed two adverse reactions simultaneously. Univariate analyses revealed statistically significant differences in efficacy between groups with structural and non-structural epilepsy and between groups with different baseline concomitant ASMs, suggesting that these factors affected the efficacy of PER as the first add-on therapy.

Conclusion: The overall response rate of PER as the first add-on therapy for children and adolescents with epilepsy who were followed up for 6 months was 74.7 %, indicating a relatively favorable safety and tolerability profile. The group of the baseline concomitant ASM administered and the etiological classification of epilepsy as either structural or non-structural were the factors influencing the efficacy of PER as the first add-on therapy.