A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF EPILEPSY WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CARBAMAZEPINE

Hirak Kumar Mukhopadhyay *^1,2, Chandi Charan Kandar¹, Sanjoy Kumar Das ¹, Lakshmikanta Ghosh ², Bijan Kumar Gupta²

¹Institute of Pharmacy, Jalpaiguri, P.O. + Dist. – Jalpaiguri, 735 101, W.B., India.

²Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata – 700 032, W.B., India.

Running Title: Carbamazepine and epilepsy

*Corresponding author:

E-mail: hirakju@yahoo.com,

Tel: 9434491615,

Fax: 03561-221884

ABSTRACT

Epilepsy is becoming the most serious disorder of brain function and affects 40 million people worldwide. The prevalence rate of epilepsy is 4 to 10 per thousand population. The incidence of epilepsy is less in most developed countries than developing countries. Epilepsy can result form brain injuries caused by blows to the head, stroke, infections, high fever or tumors. Some cases of epilepsy are induced by genetic factors. Several factors are proved to be responsible for precipitating seizures in susceptible individual these include hormonal changes during menstruation, puberty or pregnancy, drugs like theophylline, alcohol, high dose phenothiazines, antidepressants and anti-epileptics in toxic concentration. Some seizure may occur as single event resulting from withdrawal of CNS depressant , during acute illness or toxic conditions. Carbamazepine is a tricyclic iminostilbene derivative, widely used antiepileptic drugs and used in the treatment of epilepsy, trigeminal neuralgia and bipolar disorders. It belongs to the class II biopharmaceutical classification system. Compounds in this category have high intestinal permeability and low water solubility subsequently the bioavailability of such compound is limited by their solubility in water. Carbamazepine is also characterized short half life on chronic dosing because of the auto-induction of hepatic metabolism. The initial half life is about 24 hrs falling to approximately 12 hrs with chronic mono-therapy and 8 hrs in those patients a receiving other enzyme inducing drugs. This review reflects general discussion of epilepsy and analytical information, mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, indication, adverse effects and drug interaction of mostly used antiepileptic drug, carbamazepine.

Keywords : Carbamazepine, epilepsy, antiepileptic drugs, brain disorder.