Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0014547 (focal epilepsy)
 1,627 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Sensory symptoms are commonly seen in association with focal epilepsy, but viscerosensory auras, such as pharyngeal dysesthesias, are rarely the main clinical manifestation. With the introduction of vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) for medically refractory epilepsy, viscerosensory symptoms commonly occur as an adverse effect of VNS. Voice alterations (hoarseness or tremulousness), local neck or throat pain, and cough are the most common adverse effects seen during active stimulation (on-time). Numbness of the throat, neck, or chin, as well as a tingling sensation of the neck and throat is directly related to stimulation intensity. We present a case in which recurrent pharyngeal sensations caused a diagnostic dilemma and in which monitoring the VNS artifact during video/EEG and correlating this with clinical symptoms helped determine the etiology of the recurrent sensory symptoms.
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PMID:Pharyngeal dysesthesia in refractory complex partial epilepsy: new seizure or adverse effect of vagal nerve stimulation? 1279 Sep 2

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is an accepted therapy for the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy. A new VNS system ("FitNeS"; manufactured by BioControl Medical (B.C.M.) Ltd., Yehud, Israel) was implanted in 5 patients with refractory focal epilepsy. The system is composed of a programmable pulse generator and a cuff electrode that is able to provide unidirectional stimulation, both of which are implanted in the left chest and in the neck, respectively. FitNeS is based on the CardioFit vagus nerve stimulation system, which is intended for the treatment of heart failure and which is currently in a randomized controlled phase III clinical trial. Long-term stimulation in the 5 patients resulted in a 50% seizure reduction in 2 patients, 25% in 2 patients, and no effect in one patient, with few reports concerning side effects. There were no complaints of hoarseness at levels of stimulation below 2mA nor were there any reports of dysphagia or cough. The lack of perceived stimulation effects might finally allow for the design of a truly blinded randomized controlled study to evaluate the efficacy of VNS compared to placebo.
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PMID:Preliminary experience with a new system for vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of refractory focal onset seizures. 2407 Aug 79