We are studying four drugs. These drugs are the four most commonly used by women with epilepsy who are pregnant. They are carbamazepine (Tegretol or Carbatrol), phenytoin (Dilantin or Phenytek), valproate (Depakote or Depakene), and lamotrigine (Lamictal). There are generic versions of several of these, in addition to the brand names here. Phenytoin is the oldest of the four—it's been around for over 70 years. Carbamazepine also has been around for quite a while, and it's the one most commonly prescribed for pregnant women with epilepsy. Of the new drugs, lamotrigine is the one that's used most often by pregnant women.
We have a few reports of pregnancies with other new antiepileptic drugs, but the number is not as high as for the other four drugs so we haven't added those. If we try to look at every drug and there aren't many people taking some of them, we won't have much information when we get done. When the sample size is so small, we can't make good conclusions. We'd like to expand the study in the future and put in additional new drugs, but right now other new drugs are not being used at the same rates. They may be used a lot, but not so much in women who are pregnant.
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