http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/health/research/new-epilepsy-tactic-fight-inflammation.html?_r=3
... William is among the one-third of epilepsy sufferers who do not respond, or respond only poorly, to anti-epileptic medications. Now he and others with refractory epilepsy are benefiting from treatment that targets inflammation, the result of new research into how epilepsy damages the brain.
“Many of us theorize that the two are tied — inflammation causes seizures, and seizures cause inflammation,” said Orrin Devinsky, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at the New York University Langone Medical Center and William’s doctor. “Over time, both of them may feed off each other.”
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The amount of inflammation in the brain correlates with the frequency of seizures, she also has found. “This is a novel finding,” Dr. Vezzani said in an interview. “It was not known that inflammation was a common feature of different types of epilepsy.”
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The drug is now the subject of a Phase 2 trial involving 400 patients. “Anti-inflammatory therapies could at least supplement, and perhaps replace, anticonvulsants,” said Dr. Jacqueline French, a neurologist at the N.Y.U. Comprehensive Epilepsy Center who is leading the new trial.
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Replacing anticonvulsants is not merely an end in itself. Although they give many epileptics a better quality of life, they do not affect the course of the disease, only its symptoms. Researchers hope that anti-inflammatories may help ameliorate epilepsy’s underlying causes....