New drugs and vagal stimulation for treatment of epilepsy--the Israeli experience.

Epilepsy is a common condition with a prevalence of just 1% in a given population. Many patients respond poorly to monotherapy and are treated with combinations of anticonvulsants that often cause disabling side-effects. The last few years have been exciting times for epileptologist. There has been a rush of new antiepileptic drugs into clinical development. These new promising drugs along with the development of new surgical treatment such as cortical ablation, callosotomy and lately vagal stimulation are providing formidable challenges to the clinician and hope for the epileptic patients. VNS is a novel method in its early phases of efficacy and safety studies in human subjects with intractable epilepsy. Additional controlled clinical trials with large patient population and long follow up periods are necessary to confirm its efficacy and define the indications.