Table 11.
Pairwise and network meta‐analysis results ‐ Time to 12‐month remission of seizures for individuals with generalised seizures
| Comparisiona | Direct evidence (pairwise meta‐analysis) | Direct plus indirect evidence (network meta‐analysis) | ||||
| Number of studies | Number of participants | HR (95% CI)b,c | I² statisticd | Direct evidence (%)5 | HR (95% CI)b,c | |
| CBZ vs PHB | 3 | 158 | 0.53 (0.28 to 1.00) | 0% | 42.6% | 1.25 (0.83 to 1.89) |
| CBZ vs PHT | 2 | 121 | 1.11 (0.61 to 2.02) | 64.5% | 9.3% | 0.86 (0.65 to 1.16) |
| CBZ vs VPS | 4 | 412 | 1.01 (0.72 to 1.43) | 0% | 51.1% | 0.94 (0.79 to 1.14) |
| CBZ vs LTG | 1 | 9 | 1.33 (0.29 to 6.03) | NA | 7% | 1.28 (0.54 to 3.03) |
| CBZ vs OXC | 1 | 9 | 0.77 (0.15 to 3.89) | NA | 5.6% | 1.72 (0.47 to 6.25) |
| CBZ vs TPM | 2 | 101 | 1.15 (0.52 to 2.53) | 0% | 27.2% | 1.06 (0.78 to 1.45) |
| CBZ vs GBP | 1 | 6 | 2.19 (0.23 to 21.2) | NA | 10.9% | 0.75 (0.10 to 5.88) |
| CBZ vs LEV | 2 | 251 | 1.02 (0.65 to 1.59) | 77.4% | 16.6% | 1.33 (0.81 to 2.22) |
| PHB vs PHT | 3 | 130 | 1.30 (0.61 to 2.78) | 53% | 10.9% | 0.68 (0.44 to 1.08) |
| PHB vs VPS | 2 | 98 | 1.15 (0.53 to 2.49) | 42.3% | 13% | 0.75 (0.49 to 1.15) |
| PHB vs LTG | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.01 (0.40 to 2.63) | |||
| PHB vs OXC | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.37 (0.35 to 5.26) | |||
| PHB vs TPM | No direct evidence | 0% | 0.85 (0.51 to 1.41) | |||
| PHB vs GBP | No direct evidence | 0% | 0.60 (0.07 to 5.00) | |||
| PHB vs LEV | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.06 (0.56 to 2.04) | |||
| PHT vs VPS | 4 | 269 | 0.87 (0.55 to 1.40) | 0% | 44.9% | 1.10 (0.80 to 1.49) |
| PHT vs LTG | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.47 (0.60 to 3.57) | |||
| PHT vs OXC | 2 | 154 | 0.77 (0.41 to 1.47) | 0% | 41.2% | 2.00 (0.53 to 7.69) |
| PHT vs TPM | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.23 (0.81 to 1.85) | |||
| PHT vs GBP | No direct evidence | 0% | 0.87 (0.11 to 7.14) | |||
| PHT vs LEV | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.56 (0.87 to 2.78) | |||
| VPS vs LTG | 3 | 387 | 0.77 (0.38 to 1.56) | 0% | 35.7% | 1.35 (0.57 to 3.13) |
| VPS vs OXC | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.82 (0.50 to 6.67) | |||
| VPS vs TPM | 2 | 441 | 0.52 (0.26 to 1.04) | 58.5% | 10.6% | 1.12 (0.83 to 1.52) |
| VPS vs GBP | No direct evidence | 0% | 0.79 (0.10 to 6.25) | |||
| VPS vs LEV | 1 | 512 | 0.91 (0.49 to 1.70) | NA | 55.2% | 1.41 (0.83 to 2.44) |
| LTG vs OXC | 1 | 10 | 0.58 (0.13 to 2.64) | NA | 9.2% | 1.35 (0.33 to 5.56) |
| LTG vs TPM | 1 | 14 | 1.13 (0.33 to 3.82) | NA | 15.1% | 0.83 (0.35 to 2.00) |
| LTG vs GBP | 1 | 7 | 1.64 (0.18 to 14.8) | NA | 12.5% | 0.59 (0.07 to 5.00) |
| LTG vs LEV | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.05 (0.40 to 2.78) | |||
| OXC vs TPM | 1 | 14 | 1.95 (0.51 to 7.50) | NA | 11.4% | 0.62 (0.17 to 2.27) |
| OXC vs GBP | 1 | 7 | 2.83 (0.29 to 27.6) | NA | 10.9% | 0.44 (0.04 to 4.35) |
| OXC vs LEV | No direct evidence | 0% | 0.78 (0.20 to 3.13) | |||
| TPM vs GBP | 1 | 11 | 1.45 (0.18 to 11.7) | NA | 15.9% | 0.71 (0.09 to 5.56) |
| TPM vs LEV | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.27 (0.68 to 2.33) | |||
| GBP vs LEV | No direct evidence | 0% | 1.79 (0.21 to 14.3) | |||
CBZ: carbamazepine; CI: confidence interval; GBP: gabapentin; HR: hazard ratio; LEV: levetiracetam; LTG: lamotrigine; OXC: oxcarbazepine; PHB: phenobarbitone; PHT: phenytoin; TPM: topiramate; VPS: sodium valproate; ZNS: zonisamide
Generalised tonic‐clonic seizures with or without other seizure types is shortened to 'Generalised seizures' for brevity
aOrder of drugs in the table: most commonly used drug first (carbamazepine), then drugs are ordered approximately by the date they were licenced as a monotherapy treatment (oldest first). bHRs and 95% CIs are calculated from fixed‐effect analyses (pairwise and network meta‐analysis); where substantial heterogeneity was present (I2 > 50%), random‐effects meta‐analysis was also conducted, see Effects of interventions for further details. cNote that HR < 1 indicates an advantage to the second drug in the comparison; results in highlighted in bold are statistically significant. dNA ‐ heterogeneity is not applicable as only one study contributed direct evidence. eDirect evidence (%) ‐ proportion of the estimate contributed by direct evidence.