Objectives: Patients with brain tumors and seizures should be treated with non-enzyme-inducing antiepileptic drugs (AED). Some of the newer drugs seem particularly suited in these patients.
Methods: Here we describe our experience with pregabalin (PGB); its effectiveness was retrospectively studied in nine consecutive patients with primary brain tumors and seizures.
Results: Six subjects had secondarily generalized and three simple partial seizures. Patients mostly suffered from WHO grade IV gliomas. PGB replaced enzyme inducing, inefficacious or bad tolerated AED, as add-on or monotherapy. Median follow-up was 5 (2-19) months; three patients died of their tumor. Daily median dosage was 300 mg. All subjects experienced at least a 50% seizure reduction, six were seizure-free. Side effects were reported in four patients, leading to PGB discontinuation in two.
Conclusion: PGB appears to have a promising effectiveness in this setting, even as a monotherapy. Based on these results we embarked on a prospective controlled trial.