Nearly one in three people with epilepsy have a hard time controlling seizures. But a new pill under develop that suppresses seizures could be available within a decade, offering an alternative for treatment-resistant epileptics.
Researchers from University College London in the U.K. believe that the new "on demand" seizure suppressant pill they have developed may offer help to the 30 percent of epilepsy patients who do not respond successfully to anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs),
Medical News Today reports.
The new treatment, which has only been tested on rodents so far, makes brain cells more sensitive to a compound in the brain that is normally inactive.
"If we can take our new method into the clinic, which we hope to do within the next decade, we could treat patients who are susceptible to severe seizures with a one-off injection," said lead researcher Dimitri Kullmann.
The treatment involves injecting a modified virus into the area of the brain where seizures arise, he explained. The virus instructs the brain cells to make a protein that is activated by clozapine-N-oxide, a compound that can be taken as a pill. The activated protein then suppresses the brain cells that trigger seizures.
Current anti-seizure drugs work by suppressing the action of all cells in the brain, which results in side effects. If the dose needed to stop a seizure is very high, patients may need to be sedated and taken to intensive care.
About 50 million people have epilepsy worldwide. Of these, only about 70 percent respond positively to anti-epileptic drugs.
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