Abstracts

Rationale: Anti epileptic drug (AED) treatment in fathers do not have a direct dose response effect on the baby’s growth in the womb. Certain epilepsies have been associated with altered reproductive potential and certain AEDs have known to reduce the fertility in man by altering the sperm production, motility and morphology. It may be possible that this decrease in reproductive potential in isolation or in association with alterations in sperm morphology may lead to early foetal loss or may lead to malformation or learning disability in the offspring. There is a lack of studies looking into the effects of epilepsy and AEDs on the children of fathers with epilepsy. We hope to begin to bridge this gap by collecting information from fathers with epilepsy AIMS: 1.To conduct a pilot project to see if there is any increased association of malformations or increased foetal losses or learning disability in children of fathers with epilepsy. 2.If there is an increased association, then to see if one or the other AED is strongly associated with the above. The information from this pilot might form the basis for a large prospective study in future. Methods: A retrospective observational study using questionnaires. Any patient with epilepsy who has fathered a child will be included. Fathers with difficulty understanding and giving consent or if their partners have epilepsy or if there is a family history of malformations, they will be excluded from this study. Results: To-date, we have 29 completed questionnaires. From the returned data there is data on 71 children (including 2 sets of twins). Onset of epilepsy ranges from 3months old to 36 years of age. Focal epilepsies were diagnosed in 20, 7 had IGE and two had post traumatic epilepsies. Three children died at birth with 68 live birth outcomes. Ages of children ranged from few months to 30 years of age. One girl child is a product of IVF (father had erectile dysfunction) (IVF with fathers own sperm). Full data outcome to date includes 55 normal outcomes, 6 congenital malformations (with 3 neonatal deaths), 2 chromosomal anomalies, 4 children with diagnosis of epilepsy and 4 children with learning difficulty. Of note one father had 6 children with problems including congenital malformations, epilepsy and learning disability on a combination of AEDs Conclusions: The data to-date shows that it is worthwhile continuing this study and information from many fathers need to be collected before significant conclusions can be drawn.