Funding awarded for international study on epilepsy research

A researcher at the University of Liverpool has been awarded funding for a study to help people with epilepsy understand their antiseizure medications.

Dr Gashirai Mbizvo, an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Neurology, has received almost £300k for his Emerging Leader Fellowship Award from the Epilepsy Research Institute. This will fund a study on the how people with epilepsy can safely stop taking the drug sodium valproate.

Sodium valproate is an effective drug for controlling seizures for people living with epilepsy and is currently one of the most commonly used. However, the drug has been found to cause harm for unborn children during pregnancy when taken by women and new evidence has also found harm to children born from men taking valproate.

Dr Mbizvo’s study will make use of anonymised research data that has already been collected from over 20,000 people aged between 16-54 years with epilepsy who took valproate between 2015-2018. The team will compare people who discontinued valproate and started taking lamotrigine, levetiracetam or no new medication. They will look to see which of these groups had the highest risks of death, hospital admission, seizures, falls, poor mental health and other outcomes.

This evidence will be used to create a statistical tool that can be used to predict which antiseizure medications used to replace valproate are associated with the lowest risks. The tool will take personal circumstances into account, such as age, sex, type of epilepsy, and other health conditions.

This research will provide vital information about whether there are any harms associated with discontinuing valproate for young men and women with epilepsy. It will also help them understand which other antiseizure medications are a the safest alternatives.

1 in 100 people in the UK live with epilepsy and the Epilepsy Research Institute aims to increase understanding of the causes and mechanisms of epilepsy and associated conditions to accelerate research innovations in prevention and treatment.

Dr Gashirai Mbizvo said: “This study will benefit people living with epilepsy as a substantial number of young men and women may soon be invited by their doctor to consider coming off their valproate owing to concerns about the harm it may cause to their unborn child in future.

“While the risk to an unborn child is important to consider, these young men and women are likely to also ask what the risks of stopping the valproate are for their own health. This study will provide immediate evidence to help doctors answer that question. It will also empower the men and women with a tool to help them select the safest alternative antiseizure medication to replace the valproate.”

Led by Dr Mbizvo, the study is a collaboration between a range of University institutes and project groups including the Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, the Civic Health Innovation Labs (CHIL), and Liverpool Centre for Cardiovascular Science.