Abstracts

The adverse effects of lamotrigine is usually tolerable aside from skin rash. With the accumulation of clinical information, skin rash induced by lamotrigine is no longer regarded as drastic adverse effect as before. We tried to evaluate the characteristics of skin rash induced by lamotrigine wheter the rash is more common in specific patient group and whether the rash causes serious outcome. We reviewed the adverse events induced by lamotrigine in 435 patients who took lamotrigine from Jul., 1997 to Dec., 2003. Age, sex, rate of titration, co-medications, and characteristics of rashes were reviewed. 23 patients(5.3%) developed skin rash 1 to 89 days after the initiation of lamotrigine(20.2[plusmn]20.09 days). Most of the rashes were relieved at the stage of macuopapular rash and only one patient developed into Steven-Johnson syndrome and finally relieved. Most prominet factor affecting the occurrence of skin rash was age. Only 3 out of 126 patients under fifteen years of age developed skin rash, whereas 20 out of 309 patients in adults. Monotherapy(9 out of 129) and polytherapy(14 out of 306) did not cause any difference. Seven patients developed skin rash out of 131 patients who took lamotrigine while on valproic acid. Irrelevantly rapid titration was done in 78 patients and rash occurred in 6 patients. Skin rash induced by lamotrigine usually occurs in the adult. But co-medication of valproic acid and improper titration did not cause significantly higher rate of skin rash. Also, skin rash induced by lamotrigine rarely caused life-threatening event.