Comparative Safety of Antiseizure Medication Monotherapy for Major Malformations

• Published in: Annals of Neurology
• Main Authors: Cohen, Jacqueline M., Alvestad, Silje, Cesta, Carolyn E., Bjørk, Marte Helene, Leinonen, Maarit K., Nørgaard, Mette, Einarsdóttir, Kristjana, Engeland, Anders, Gissler, Mika, Karlstad, Øystein, Klungsøyr, Kari, Odsbu, Ingvild, Reutfors, Johan, Selmer, Randi M., Tomson, Torbjörn, Ulrichsen, Sinna Pilgaard, Zoega, Helga, Furu, Kari
• Other Authors: Faculty of Medicine
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2022
• Subjects: Neurology; Neurology (clinical); Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11815/3926; https://doi.org/10.1002/ana.26561

Funding Information: The study was partly supported by the NordForsk Nordic Program on Health and Welfare (Nordic Pregnancy Drug Safety Studies, project No. 83539 and SCAN‐AED, project No. 83796), by the Research Council of Norway (International Pregnancy Drug Safety Studies, project No. 273366), and by the Research Council of Norway through its Centers of Excellence funding scheme (project No. 262700). H.Z. was supported by a UNSW Scientia Program Award during the conduct of the study. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors. Annals of Neurology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Neurological Association. Objective: This study was undertaken to examine the comparative safety of antiseizure medication (ASM) monotherapy in pregnancy with respect to risk of major congenital malformations (MCMs), overall and by MCM subtype. Methods: We conducted a population-based cohort study using national health register data from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (1996–2020). We compared pregnancies with first trimester exposure to lamotrigine monotherapy to ASM-unexposed, carbamazepine, valproate, oxcarbazepine, levetiracetam, and topiramate to lamotrigine monotherapy, and stratified monotherapy groups by dose. The outcome was nongenetic MCM and specific subtypes. We estimated adjusted risk ratios (aRRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) with log-binomial regression and propensity score weights. Results: There was a higher crude risk of any MCM in pregnancies exposed to lamotrigine monotherapy (n = 8,339) compared to ASM-unexposed pregnancies (n = 4,866,362), but not after confounder adjustment (aRR = 0.97, 95% CI = 0.87–1.08). Compared to lamotrigine, there was an increased risk of malformations associated with valproate (n = 2,031, aRR = 2.05, 95% CI = 1.70–2.46) and topiramate (n = 509, aRR = 1.81, 95% CI = 1.26–2.60), which increased in a dose-dependent manner. We found no differences in malformation risk for carbamazepine (n = 2,674, aRR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.72–1.15), oxcarbazepine (n = ...