Health technology assessment : HTA
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Health Technol Assess · Oct 2007
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyA randomised controlled trial examining the longer-term outcomes of standard versus new antiepileptic drugs. The SANAD trial.
To compare clinicians' choice of one of the standard epilepsy drug treatments (carbamazepine or valproate) versus appropriate comparator new drugs. ⋯ The evidence suggests that LTG may be a clinical and cost-effective alternative to the existing standard drug treatment, CBZ, for patients diagnosed as having partial seizures. For patients with idiopathic generalised epilepsy or difficult to classify epilepsy, VPS remains the clinically most effective drug, although TPM may be a cost-effective alternative for some patients. Three new antiepileptic drugs have recently been licensed in the UK for the treatment of epilepsy (levetiracetam, zonisamide and pregabalin), therefore these drugs should be compared in a similarly designed trial.