Enterocolitis: an adverse event in refractory epilepsy patients treated with levetiracetam?

Abstract

The close temporal relationship between initiation of LEV intake, symptomatic colitis and clinical improvement following LEV tapering, suggests that colitis may be a possible and previously undescribed adverse effect of LEV.

Levetiracetam in children with refractory epilepsy: A multicenter open label study in Germany

“…The single most severe adverse event observed in our study was an acute bout of hemorrhagic colitis in a two-year-old girl which was rapidly reversible on immediate drug withdrawal and has been recently also reported in two adult cases. 9 A number of pediatric studies usually on small selected patient groups report on seizure control with LEV. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] With regard to the effectiveness of LEV in improving seizure control in this cohort of drug-resistant epilepsy we found a 50% responder rate in 20.6% while 6% still became seizure free.…”

Diarrhea, negative t-waves, fever and skin rash, rare manifestation of carbamazepine hypersensitivity: a case report

“…Individuals with "slow liver metabolism" may be at increased risk to develop "drug induced hypersensitivity syndrome" due to the production of toxic metabolites in the liver even after CBZ has been completely cleared; CBZ has also been linked to acute liver failure. Enterocolitis may be caused by various antiepileptic drugs [ 7 , 8 ]. Diagnosis of enteric manifestation of AEDHS is based on a close temporal relationship between drug exposure and development of diarrhea as well as improvement after withdrawal of the causing drug like in our case.…”

“…The drug has anticonvulsive and anticholinergic properties by reducing excessive nerve signals in the brain and restoring the normal balance of nerve activity. Side effects include diarrhea and colitis, aplastic anemia and agranulocytosis as well as other rare conditions such as cardiotoxicity [ 7 , 8 ].…”

Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis Induced by Carbamazepine: A Case Study

“…(gastrointestinal), and aplastic anemia [13,14]. We are reporting such an interesting case of CBZ induced TEN at a tertiary care hospital in the southern part of Assam.…”