Neurocognitive evaluation of oxcarbazepine monotherapy in children with benign chilhood epilepsy

Materials and methods A total of 71 patients aged 5.6 to 11.4 years (45 males, 25 females, mean 8.5 ± 0.7) with typical clinical and EEG features of BECTS were assigned to OXC monotherapy. Inclusion criteria were a) newly diagnosed epilepsy, b) 3 or more seizures during the past 6 months c) normal brain magnetic imaging. All of them underwent psychometric assessment at screening and after 18 months of treatment by means of WISC-III, Illinois Test of Psychomotor Abilities, DSM-IV, and Bender-Santucci Test. Seizure types, frequency, awake and sleep EEG findings, dosage ranges were documented. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to describe differences 1) at initial evaluation, comparing patients with a group of 45 age-matched unaffected controls and 2) after 18 months of OXC monotherapy, as an individual follow-up in the patient group.