Kate Davis, MD, MSTR: Increasing Treatment Options for Epilepsy Patients
The epileptologist at the University of Pennsylvania spoke about the multiple options for patients with epilepsy and the need for a better understanding of choosing from the options.
“With all these new options that are available, my lab is really focused in on figuring out what the best therapy is for a given patient.”
At the American Epilepsy Society’s (AES) annual meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, one of the main topics of conversation among epileptologists was the influx of therapies coming through the pipeline.
One of the hottest candidates to make it to market has been cannabidiol (Epidiolex, GW Pharmaceuticals), with much of the discussion surrounding how it should be utilized. Additionally, fenfluramine for the treatment of Dravet syndrome and cenobamate for generalized tonic-clonic seizures were also therapies of interest at AES 2018. On top of the pharmacologic treatments, a number of stimulation devices have piqued the interest of the epilepsy community.
To discuss all of these therapeutic options and how to determine their use, Kate Davis, MD, MSTR, an epileptologist at the University of Pennsylvania, sat with NeurologyLive. She discussed how she and her colleagues are doing work at their lab to determine which option is best for a given individual, and how this is a vital need in the epilepsy space.
