Archive 1995–2023

Lamotrigine belongs to the third generation of antiepileptic drugs. Lamotrigine, as an antiepileptic drug is mainly recommended for partial-onset seizures, however, its efficacy has been also documented for juvenile myoclonic epilepsy and Lennox-Gastaut syndrorne. Lamotrigine has been also used for the treatment of migraine, trigeminal neuralgia, and painful polyneuropathy. In recent years, due to demonstrated mood-normalizing activity, lamotrigine has been used in the treatment of bipolar affective illness. Mood-normalizing action of lamotrigine includes prevention of depressive and manic recurrences, stabilization of rapid cycling and in acute episode, mainly antidepressant activity. Ionic channel blocking by lamotrigine is important mostly for the antiepileptic action of the drug however, psychotropic activity of lamotrigine in bipolar affective illness is probably due to antiglutamatergic and neuroprotective mechanism. The most serious adverse effect of lamotrigine is skin rash, which risk can be prevented by slow titration of the drug dose.