Abstract
We investigated the short-term effect of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) for intractable epilepsy in childhood. The subjects were 10 patients with epilepsy aged 7 months to 12 years. The type of epilepsy were Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) in 5 cases, infantile spasms in 3 cases, and other secondary generalized epilepsy in 2 cases. All patients had mental retardation of various degrees. The frequency of seizures was more than one a day or more than one a week. Three of the subjects had not received any therapy prior to the TRH therapy.
The daily dose of TRH-tartrate 0.5 or 1 mg was given intramuscularly for two weeks.
Complete control of seizures was achieved in 5 patients and a more than 50% decrease in seizure frequency was observed in 3 cases within 4 to 10 daysafter the initiation of the TRH therapy. No significant change of seizure frequencywas observed in the remaining 2 cases. Electroencephalographic improvement wasobtained in 6 cases during the TRH therapy. In four of the 6 cases responded, seizure discharges disappeared. It was notable that both complete control of seizures and disappearance of seizure discharges on EEG was observed in 3 of 5 cases (60%) with LGS.
Improvement of various degrees in psychic activity was also achieved in all cases. However, transient vomiting, fever and increased irritability appeared in a few infant cases. No other serious side effects were observed during the TRH therapy.
The results of the study indicated that TRH was considered a possible new treat-ment for children with intractable epilepsy.
