Withdrawal of anti-epileptic drugs: A review

Anti-epileptic drugs are the mainstay in treatment of epilepsy. It requires a strong clinical decision in patients who are well controlled on medications to withdraw anti-epileptic drugs. This decision has to be based on the clinical profile, epilepsy type, neuroimaging and electroencephalography (EEG) findings and has to be more individualized as per the patient needs. In the context of drug withdrawal, it is necessary to look into the details of why, how and when to withdraw anti-epileptics. In this article, we critically try to answer such queries and look into the established guidelines with respect to drug withdrawal. We shall look into the chances of recurrence on stopping these drugs. Also, in the end we shall discuss briefly some special clinical scenarios where decision to stop anti-epileptic drugs is a challenging task.