A new research has disclosed that one of the oldest available anti-seizure medicines, ethosuximide, is the best cure for childhood absence epilepsy.

The research team compared three medicines typically used to handle the most common childhood epilepsy syndrome, childhood absence epilepsy, which is characterized by frequent non-convulsive seizures, which make the kid to discontinue what he/she is doing and gaze for up to 30 seconds at time.

OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital is one of 32 comprehensive paediatric epilepsy centres chosen to take part in this landmark clinical experiment as part of the NIH Childhood Absence Epilepsy Study Group.

Colin Roberts, M. D., OHSU Doernbecher's principal investigator for the study, assistant professor of pediatrics and neurology, and director of OHSU Doernbecher's Pediatric Epilepsy Program said, "Much of our scientific understanding of childhood epilepsy care today comes from historical experience or studies involving adult patients with related, but not identical, conditions."

Before this research, there was no definitive proof on which medication worked best.

The researchers enrolled 453 kids newly diagnosed with childhood absence epilepsy between July 2004 to Oct 2007. The study partakers were randomly assigned to ethosuximide, valproic acid or lamotrigine.

Drug doses were incrementally increased until the child was seizure-free.

After 16 weeks of treatment, the scientists discovered that ethosuximide and valproic acid were significantly more effectual as compared to lamotrigine in controlling seizures, with no intolerable side effects. They also found ethosuximide was linked with significantly fewer negative effects on attention.

The initial outcomes of the research were published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. (With Input from Agencies)