Idiopathic refractory epileptic dogs: Levetiracetam or gabapentin add-on to phenobarbital therapy

The most common epilepsy in small animal practice is idiopathic epilepsies. Phenobarbital (Pb) is used as first line of therapy by many practitioners. Clinical cases were considered refractory when they had epilepsies inspite of adequate serum therapeutic Pb level. The purpose of the study was to identify the right add-on between Levetiracetam and Gabapentin which suits as Pb add-on therapy. The total refractory epileptic clinical case in the study period was 36. They had the mean serum Pb level of 26.52±3.63µg/ml. The parameters studied were number of epileptic episodes, duration of epilepsy, interictal periods, mentation of treated animals, neuro-behaviour and notifiable side effects. Based on the data it was found that there was a highly significant reduction in the number of epileptic episodes in Gabapentin added group when compare to Levetiracetam group. There was a significant reduction in duration of epilepsy and interictal periods in Gabapentin added group when compare to Levetiracetam addition. The other parameter varied without any significance. It was concluded from our study that Gabapentin add-on therapy was more effective in reducing the frequency and duration of epilepsies and increasing the inter-ictal periods of animals with refractory epilepsies having adequate serum therapeutic Pb level.