False pharmacoresistance – a true problem

Abstract

Pharmacoresistant epilepsy poses a great burden to patients, their families, and the whole healthcare system, with numerous social, economic, physical, and psychical consequences. Hence, it is a diagnosis that has to be made only in cases of high certainty, after all potential causes of epilepsy have been evaluated. One of the important causes of pharmacoresistant epilepsy is false pharmacoresistance, an entity that implies a condition in which poor disease control is not a consequence of the biology of the disease itself, antiepileptic drug inefficacy, and/or patient specificity. It is a consequence of human error and strongly depends on the experience of the treating physician, as well as on the attitude of the patient. Despite its ‘falseness’, this entity is accompanied by real consequences for the patient and his family, and at the same time, it delays appropriate treatment of the actual disease from which the patient is suffering. In order to introduce appropriate treatment and avoid unnecessary and harmful diagnostic procedures, false pharmacoresistance is a condition that has to be ruled out in any patient with difficult-to-treat seizures.

Keywords

• Epilepsy
• False pharmacoresistance
• Antiepileptic drugs
• Pharmacoresistant epilepsy