View clinical trials related to Spasms, Infantile.
Filter by:Infantile spasms are defined by the occurrence of epileptic episodes characterized by the appearance of very specific motor seizures, made up of rapid, repeated contractions in flexion or extension known as spasms. This syndrome is of high concern as it will lead to mental retardation if it is not early identified and treated. Most often, spasms are characterized by sudden contractions of the body in flexion. More rarely, spasms occur in extension: the neck and legs suddenly tense, and the arms move upwards or sideways. Spasms may be accompanied by eye revulsion. They are brief, lasting 0.5 to 2 seconds each. At the start of the attack, they may be isolated, but then may occur in series lasting up to several tens of minutes. Because of its nature and duration, infantile spasm is often difficult to identify and is often confused with benign motor manifestations in children, such as hiccups or muscular jerks. This difficulty often leads to delays in diagnosis. Indeed, patients are often seen at the stage when cognitive regression has set in. The gold standard for diagnosing infantile spasms is to capture them on video-EEG to confirm the ictal correlate of the seizure. Although multiple variations are known, the ictal correlation is often a diffuse slow wave of high amplitude with subsequent electrodecrement. Yet continuous video electroencephalogram is an expensive and time-consuming resource often unavailable in developing countries and in many parts of the developed world. Furthermore, in an appropriate clinical scenario, continuous video-EEG may be unnecessary. For example, a home video examination with typical spasms combined with a definitively epileptic ambulatory EEG may certainly be adequate for the diagnosis of infantile spasms As part of Mr. Diop's thesis, the study team have developed a system for analyzing videos acquired in 2 dimensions from a simple smartphone or webcam and highlighting the existence of spasms in a child. The principle is to use computer vision and computer learning model to identify the spasms from these videos. The first prototype of this system achieved a positive predictive value of 77%, which is very good considering the small sample used (< 100) but quite insufficient to obtain a diagnostic prediction for medical use, for which we hope for sensitivity and specificity of around 95%. The aim is to achieve a sensitivity and specificity of over 95% so that we can offer this detection system to healthcare professionals and parents of children who do not have rapid access to diagnosis. The aim is to develop a system enabling broad screening at the population level so that identified children can be more rapidly directed towards the healthcare system and appropriate treatment for their disease. To achieve this goal, we need access to a standardized reference database that currently exists in the various pediatric electrophysiology laboratories of the Assistance Publique - Hôpitaux de Paris and the Île-de-France region. we propose using the films stored in these laboratories to teach the computer to recognize spasms that have already been formally identified by electrophysiologists and by ictal concordance.
Currently, no literature is available regarding degree of cortical excitability and its correlation with various epileptic syndromes and disorders such as West Syndrome in pediatric age group. Studying the complex interaction of cortical excitability, seizures, neurobehavioral patterns and brain maturation in children may provide valuable information and new insights about the underlying neuropathogenic pathways in childhood epilepsy. West Syndrome is a unique epilepsy syndrome amalgamating infantile onset epilepsy with significant neurodevelopmental delay. Due to this reason, it is the ideal disorder to study this complex interaction. How cortical excitability correlates with disease activity in West Syndrome is speculative. The ability of disease characteristics such as degree of cortical excitability to predict successful outcome after ACTH therapy (non-invasive biomarker of treatment response) in children with West Syndrome has not been explored. Most importantly, the present study may be a hypothesis generating initial step bringing new insights into neurocognitive effects of seizures, seizure pathogenesis, individualized antiepileptic drug therapy and for studying treatment response. The investigators aim to determine the change in cortical excitability pre and post ACTH therapy, in children with West syndrome and whether the change predicts responsiveness to ACTH therapy, in terms of reduction in spasm frequency at 12 weeks.
This study has been planned to compare the efficacy and tolerability of topiramate, a commonly used second line agent, with modified Atkins diet in children with epileptic spasms refractory to hormonal treatment, in a randomized open label study.
Infantile spasms (IS) are seizures associated with a severe infantile epileptic encephalopathy. Both cessation of spasms and electrographic response are necessary for the best neurodevelopmental outcomes. Adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), or prednisolone, or vigabatrin are considered the first-line treatment individually. However, ACTH expense and availability are the barriers in developing countries including Thailand. Vigabatrin, therefore, is the first recommended by Epilepsy Society of Thailand due to ACTH unavailability. Recently, combined steroid treatments (either ACTH or high dose prednisolone) with vigabatrin are superior in cessation of spasms compared to steroid treatment alone. Thus, this study is aimed to compare the efficacy of vigabatrin with high dose prednisolone combination therapy and vigabatrin alone.
This is a phase II clinical trial in which children with refractory infantile spasms (also called epileptic spasms or West syndrome) will be treated with fenfluramine, to evaluate efficacy, safety, and tolerability. Patients with infantile spasms that have not responded to treatment with vigabatrin and ACTH we will be invited to participate. Study participants will undergo baseline video-EEG, receive treatment with fenfluramine for 21 days, and then undergo repeat video-EEG to determine effectiveness. Patients with favorable response will have the opportunity to continue treatment for up to 6 months.
This study plans to learn more about how the use of new telemedicine technology can help with parental stress, costs, and overall satisfaction in care. Investigators are studying this in families who have children with a specific seizure type called infantile spasms and being treated with a medication called ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone). Infantile spasms is a rare epileptic encephalopathy that occurs within the first two years of life. It is associated with complicated and expensive treatment and poor developmental outcomes. Participants will be randomly placed in one of two groups. The first group will continue with the traditional monitoring practices primarily performed by their pediatrician. The second group will use telemedicine technology to be monitored. Investigators will then compare the two groups to see if there are any differences in parental stress, costs of care, and/or overall satisfaction with care. The primary hypothesis is that compared to those utilizing usual monitoring, parents/caregivers of infants with IS treated with ACTH utilizing nurse-led remote biometric monitoring will report less parenting stress at 2 and 4 weeks of treatment.
Infantile Spasms (IS) are classically refractory to the usual antiepileptic drugs and often pose a therapeutic challenge. Since, there is associated significant morbidity, much effort has been directed over the past years to evaluate the role of various anticonvulsants in the management of IS. High dose oral prednisolone has been shown to cause early cessation of spasms and resolution of hypsarrythmia on Electroencephalogram. Recently, role of intravenous methylprednislone pulse therapy has been explored as one of the therapeutic modality in IS, in order to avoid the development of side-effects associated with prolonged oral steroid therapy and maintain long-term efficacy.However, there are no studies comparing iv methylprednisolone pulse therapy with high dose oral prednisolone..
Epileptic spasms are a difficult to treat epileptic condition in young children. The first line treatment is hormonal treatment, in the form of ACTH or oral steroids, which are effective in 60-70% of children. The condition does not respond well to other anti-epileptic drugs except vigabatrin which is not approved and hence has limited availability and high cost in India. The ketogenic diet, a high fat low carbohydrate diet has been found to be effective in refractory childhood epilepsy especially epileptic spasms. However, the ketogenic diet restricts calories and proteins and required strict weighing of foods. The modified Atkins diet (MAD) is a less restrictive diet which is easier for the parents to prepare and for the children to consume. In this study, it is planned to evaluate the efficacy of the MAD in children with epileptic spasms refractory to hormonal treatment in a randomized controlled trial.
This is a multicenter, double-blind, parallel-group, placebo-controlled, study to assess the efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetics of ZX008 when used as adjunctive therapy in pediatric and young adult subjects with Dravet syndrome. Subjects who qualify for the study will be randomized (1:1:1) in a double-blind manner to receive 1 of 2 doses of ZX008 or placebo. All subjects will be titrated to their randomized dose over a 14-day Titration Period. Following titration, subjects will continue treatment at their randomly assigned dose over a 12-week Maintenance Period. Total treatment time from the beginning of the Titration Period through the end of the Maintenance Period is 14 weeks.
Investigators at Boston Children's Hospital are conducting research in order to better understand the genetic factors which may contribute to epilepsy and related disorders. These findings may help explain the broad spectrum of clinical characteristics and outcomes seen in people with epilepsy.