Oxcarbazepine is a relatively new antiepileptic drug with a similar efficacy to carbamazepine, but its effect on the reproductive endocrine function of women is unknown. Results of a recent study, however, indicate that oxcarbazepine is associated with an increase in the levels of some androgens and in the prevalence of polycystic ovaries.
Löfgren and colleagues from Finland recruited 35 women with epilepsy who were receiving monotherapy with either carbamazepine (n = 16) or oxcarbazepine (n = 19), and 36 healthy female controls. They carried out neurological and gynecological examinations of the participants, and collected blood samples during the early follicular phase of their menstrual cycles to analyze serum samples of reproductive hormones.
Although patients taking either carbamazepine or oxcarbazepine had lower serum levels of testosterone and free androgen than controls, patients taking oxcarbazepine were found to have higher serum levels of androstenedione and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate than patients taking carbamazepine. There was also a higher prevalence of polycystic ovaries among patients receiving oxcarbazepine than in carbamazepine or control subjects.
The authors conclude that carbamazepine and oxcarbazepine appear to have differing effects on the reproductive endocrine function of women with epilepsy, and that oxcarbazepine could adversely affect women with epilepsy and hyperandrogenism. They add that further studies are needed to establish whether the endocrine changes are a result of the epilepsy itself or of the oxcarbazepine.
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17 May 2018
This article was published with the same DOI as a previous publication. A new DOI has been assigned and registered at Crossref, and has been corrected in the article.
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Oxcarbazepine increases the levels of some androgens. Nat Rev Endocrinol 2, 599 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpneuro0311x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpneuro0311x
