Background and purpose: This study aimed to determine the effects of oxcarbazepine (OXC) on the language function of patients with pediatric epilepsy.
Methods: We assessed the language abilities of patients aged 5-17 years with newly diagnosed focal epilepsy and the same number of age-matched healthy children using the Test of Problem Solving (TOPS) and the Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test-Receptive (REVT-R). The Mean Length of Utterance-words (MLU-w) was used to estimate linguistic productivity before and after OXC initiation. All patients received OXC monotherapy with a starting dosage of 10 mg/kg/day for 1 week, which in some cases was increased to 30 mg/kg/day (or 1,200 mg/day).
Results: The study finally included 41 pediatric patients (22 males and 19 females; age 9.9±3.0 years, mean±standard deviation). All language parameters of the TOPS improved significantly after initiating OXC (determining cause, 12.5±4.8-13.7±4.1 [p=0.016]; making inference, 15.6±5.6-17.4±6.4 [p<0.001]; and predicting, 9.8±5.0-11.6±4.5 [p=0.001]). However, patients who received OXC did not exhibit a significantly extended MLU-w (determining cause, p=0.493; making inference, p=0.386; and predicting, p=0.341). Receptive language scores also significantly increased after taking OXC (REVT-R: 121.0±43.1-129.4±43.8, p=0.002), but the percentage of development age to chronological age did not vary (REVT-developmental quotient: p=0.075).
Conclusions: Our results suggest that OXC is safe and preserves language function in patients with pediatric epilepsy.
Keywords: antiepileptic drug; epilepsy; language; oxcarbazepin.
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