Approximately 30 per cent of patients with epilepsy do not respond to anti-epileptic drugs. In these cases, all neurologists can do is attempt to find the right combination of medication through trial and error. A treatment that could target the root cause of epilepsy is a beacon of hope for these patients. But identifying the cause of the pathology is no easy feat. "There are many genes involved," said Jacques Michaud, pediatrician at CHU Sainte-Justine and Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at the Faculty of Medicine of Université de Montreal. "Each child can have different genetic mutations. Often the clinical symptoms do not clearly reflect the cause of epilepsy, which makes choosing the right treatment more difficult."
↧