EDITORIAL COMMENTARY
Teratogenic effects of antiepileptic drugs
Major congenital malformations and antiepileptic drugs: prospective observations
Epilepsy Unit, Western Infirmary, Glasgow, Scotland
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
M J Brodie
Director, Epilepsy Unit, Western Infirmary, Glasgow G11 6NT, Scotland; mjb2k@clinmed.gla.ac.uk
High dose lamotrigine may be teratogenic
Keywords: congenital malformations; pregnancy; antiepileptic drugs
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The spectre of teratogenesis has been hanging over young women with epilepsy ever since the association of fetal malformations with antiepileptic drug (AED) exposure was first mooted by Roy Meadow in a letter to The Lancet in 1968.1 There followed a flood of retrospective reports and small prospective studies suggesting that perhaps all of the established drugs could be implicated in this problem. The global licensing of nine new antiepileptic drugs over the past 15 years has added to the confusion. Those agents that did not appear to be teratogenic in rodents have been touted by enthusiasts as "possibly" safe in pregnancy. The most confident claims were made for lamotrigine, and schedules have been devised to switch women of childbearing age from carbamazepine, phenytoin, or sodium valproate to this drug. What was (is) clearly needed was large prospective registries including only women in whom the
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