Prednisolone in Infantile Spasms- High Dose Versus Usual Dose

Summary

Infantile spasms comprise a difficult to treat type of epilepsy in young children. Hormonal treatment, i.e. Prednisolone and ACTH are considered the treatment of choice. There is no consensus on the dosage of Prednisolone required for the treatment of infantile spasms. Recent data has shown that a high dose (4 mg/kg/day) may be more efficacious than the usual dose (2 mg/kg/day). However, there are no randomized controlled trials comparing these doses. A higher steroid dose may also be associated with more side effects. Therefore, this study was planned to compare the efficacy and tolerability of the high dose versus the usual dose in children with infantile spasms, in a randomized open-label trial design

Timeline

Start

2012-02

Primary completion

2013-02

Completion

2013-03

Outcome

Met primary endpoint

paper The proportion of children with spasm cessation on day-14 was significantly higher in the high-dose group as compared to the usual-dose group (51.6% vs. 25%, p=0.03). PMID 25048310 ↗

Publications

• Chellamuthu P, Sharma S, Jain P, Kaushik JS, Seth A, Aneja S. High dose (4 mg/kg/day) versus usual dose (2 mg/kg/day) oral prednisolone for treatment of infantile spasms: an open-label, randomized controlled trial. Epilepsy Res. 2014 Oct;108(8):1378-84. doi: 10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2014.06.019. Epub 2014 Jul 5.

Drugs

Indications