Efecto a corto plazo de la vigabatrina en los espasmos infantiles

the purpose of this paper was to assess the short term effect of vigabatrin in 18 patients that were diagnosed infantile spasms. thirteen of them were treated with monotherapy, and six of them were treated of first intention. the average maximum dose of vigabatrin was 130 mg/(kg？day) (range 75-170 mg/[kg？day]). the epileptic spasms ceased in 44.4 % of the cases at 18.4 days as an average after the beginning of the treatment with vigabatrin (range 3 to 43 days). the average dose of response to vigabatrin was 103 mg/(kg？day) (range 50 to 156 mg/[kg？day]). in 16.7 % of the children it was possible to reduce the crises more than 90 % , whereas in 5.6 % the epileptic spasms decreased more than 50 %. the epileptic spasms persisted in 33.3 %. an electroencephalographic improvement was observed in 55.6 % of the cases, and in 5.6 % the discharges vanished. hipsarrhythmia disappeared in 75 % of the cases. it was concluded that vigabatrin should be used as monotherapy or as an adjuvant therapy in patients with infantile spasms.