Clinical experience with sodium valproate in children.

Good control was achieved with sodium valproate (Epilim) in 44 (71%) of a sample of 62 children with severe recurrent epileptic seizures. The medication was most effective in the control of petit mal; good results, however, were also achieved in some patients with previously poorly controlled grand mal epilepsy and psychomotor and myoclonic seizures. Twenty children required no other anti-convulsant and 28 required only one other. Side-effects were infrequent and mild. Only the high cost of sodium valproate in South Africa precludes its more general use in childhood epilepsy.