ArticleEpilepsia open2022
Differences between men and women in response to antiseizure medication use and the likelihood of developing treatment resistant epilepsy.
Article in Epilepsia open, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sex Differences in Adverse Effects of Antiseizure Medications in Adults with Epilepsy: A Systematic Review.CNS drugs · 2024Pooled it
- Factors associated with drug-resistant epilepsy in adults from Southern Kazakhstan.Future science OA · 2026Article
- The Impact of Levetiracetam on Various Symptoms of Morphine Dependence in Mice.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Risk factors for drug-resistant epilepsy according to sex: a cohort study conducted in a middle-income country.Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria · 2026Article
- Rapamycin and Minocycline Treatment Does Not Rescue Behavioral and Molecular Changes Induced by Early-Life Seizures in Female Mice.NeuroSci · 2026Article
- Cortistatin neurons in the prelimbic cortex regulate seizure susceptibility in female mice via BDNF-TrkB signaling.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Sex and gender-related differences in neurological diseases: current challenges and recommendations for clinical practice.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2026Review
- Anticonvulsant effects, safety, and sex-dependent molecular signatures of cannabidiol treatment in a preclinical model of audiogenic epilepsy.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Why patients say no: Patient barriers to epilepsy surgery among patients with drug-resistant epilepsy in Singapore.Epilepsia open · 2025Article
- UK Medical Cannabis Registry: A Clinical Outcomes Analysis for Epilepsy.Brain and behavior · 2025Observational
- Interictal Dysphoric Disorder in Epilepsy and Its Relationship with Specific Clinical and Demographic Variables.Psychiatry and clinical psychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Short-term effectiveness and side effects of ketogenic diet for drug-resistant epilepsy in children with genetic epilepsy syndromes.Frontiers in neurology · 2024Article
- Differences between men and women in response to antiseizure medication use and the likelihood of developing treatment resistant epilepsy.Epilepsia open · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveThe prevalence of epilepsy is slightly higher in women than in men and sensitivity to seizure stimuli differs between sexes. Some evidence suggests sex differences in response to antiseizure medications exist mainly due to inconsistent pharmacokinetic differences; however, there is a lack of real-world evidence examining differences in response to antiseizure medications between men and women.
methodsThis was a retrospective population-based cohort study in five large US healthcare databases. The population included adult patients with epilepsy, newly exposed to levetiracetam, and naive to antiseizure medication. The first exposure to levetiracetam was the index date. The requirement that all patients received the same medication was done to avoid potential confounding due to differences in index treatment. The outcome was the development of treatment resistant epilepsy (TRE), defined as having at least three distinct antiseizure medications in 1 year. The proportion of patients who developed TRE within 1 year following the index date was calculated. To compare the risk of developing TRE between sexes, relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated, and estimates were pooled using meta-analytic techniques stratified by gender and age.
resultsA total of 147 334 subjects were included in the databases, 50.8% were women, and 4.27% developed TRE. The comorbid profile differed greatly between men and women; however, the types of epilepsy syndromes observed during baseline were similar between the two groups. Across all databases, women were more likely to develop TRE than men (pooled RR 1.27, 95% CI 1.17-1.38). Results remained similar when stratified by age. SIGNIFICANCE: This study assessed sex differences in response to antiseizure medications using the development of TRE as a proxy for effectiveness. Women newly exposed to levetiracetam were 27% more likely to develop TRE than men, independent of age.
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