Perampanel during pregnancy: Description of four cases

Abstract

Perampanel (PER) is approved in Italy as an adjunctive treatment for focal-onset seizures (FOS) and generalized tonic-clonic seizures (GTCs), and it could be an alternative to valproate in young women diagnosed with idiopathic generalized epilepsy. Nevertheless, clinical data about the outcome of pregnancies in women exposed to PER are lacking. Here, we report retrospectively collected data from four women suffering from FOS who were exposed to PER during pregnancy. Three pregnancies were carried out with PER as add-on therapy during the entire gestation (8 mg/day in two patients and 6 mg/day in one), without seizure frequency variations. The fourth patient started PER 2 mg/day as monotherapy during the 13th week of pregnancy due to seizure relapse and continued it until delivery with complete seizure control. All pregnancies showed good outcomes, and their newborns did not possess major congenital malformations. Apgar scores and auxological parameters at birth were normal. Fetal pathology in follow-up during pregnancies was absent in all cases. In our patients PER was well tolerated and appeared safe for the fetuses and did not result in major malformations or adverse events at birth. Nevertheless, this is a report involving a small number of patients and it does not suggest the general use of PER is safe during pregnancy.

Keywords

• Epilepsy
• Perampanel
• Pregnancy
• Anti-seizure medications (ASMs)
• Neonatal major malformations