Study of Verapamil in Refractory Epilepsy

• Status: Unknown status
• Trial end date: 2012-12-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Epilepsy is one of the most common chronic neurological diseases, affecting 300,000 Canadians. One in 3 epilepsy patients have refractory seizures meaning that all antiseizure drugs fail to control their seizures. This drug resistance in epilepsy may be related to the over expression of multidrug resistance proteins (MDR). Varapamil inhibits MDR. We propose to add verapamil/placebo to patients' anti epilepsy medication for 3 months. Patients who receive placebo will have verapamil added for 3 months after the completion of the double-blind treatment period. Seizure frequency/severity will be tracked. Blood samples for DNA will be collected. There will be 9 clinic visits over 32 weeks. ECG and echocardiogram will be done at baseline and repeated if necessary

• Phase: N/A
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: University Health Network, Toronto
• Treatments: Verapamil

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• 1. patients in whom seizures are not controlled by their antiseizure medication;

• 2. must have at least 2 seizures per month.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Exclusion: patients with cardiovascular problems that could be adversely affected by verapamil