William Rosenfeld, MD: Balancing Cenobamate and Concomitant ASMs

“In this open-label study, we were able to lower concomitant anti-seizure medications (ASMs) and we learned a lot about which drugs you should consider lowering and the timing of lowering ASMs.”

William Rosenfeld, MD, neurologist, Comprehensive Epilepsy Care Center for Children and Adults, in St. Louis, Missouri presented data from his post-hoc analysis of a phase 3 study at the American Epilepsy Society (AES) Annual Meeting, December 4–8, 2020. These data suggest that reducing doses of concomitant ASMs led to fewer patients with focal seizures discontinuing cenobamate (Xcopri; SK Life Science).

Rosenfeld and colleagues showed that patients that had greater decreases in mean concomitant ASM use (first vs last dose) were more likely to continue on cenobamate compared to those who did not decrease mean concomitant ASM use. These decreases were mostly due to adverse events experienced during titration or early maintenance phases when cenobamate doses were escalated.

NeurologyLive spoke with Rosenfeld to learn more about cenobamate and how his team attempted to reduce adverse events with other concomitant medications. The SK Life Science product was approved in late 2019 for the treatment of partial-onset seizures. 

For more coverage of AES 2020, click here.

REFERENCE

Rosenfeld W, Aboumatar S, Bhatia P, et al. Dose adjustments to concomitant antiseizure medications: post-hoc analysis of a phase 3, open-label study of cenobamate for the treatment of uncontrolled focal seizures. Presented at AES 2020 Annual Meeting; December 4–8, 2020. Abstract 336.