Table 1.

Demographic and clinical variables of the different groups according to valproate (VPA) treatment.

	VPA users (VPA+)	non-VPA users (VPA-)	Drug-naïve	Healthy controls	p
N. of subjects	54	47	51	40
Female gender %	39%	53%	49%	52%	n.s.
Age (years), means ± sd	23.2 ± 4.7	30.2 ± 8.2	21.5 ± 2.7	25.5 ± 5.7	<0.01*
Disease duration (years), mean	8.6	12.6	4.9	–	<0.01**
Patients with GGE (%)	32 (59%)	9 (19%)	24 (47%)	–	<0.01*
Patients with Focal Epilepsy (%)	22 (41%)	38 (81%)	27 (53%)	–	<0.01*
Patients with TLE	4	17	7	–
Patients with F/I/C lobe epilepsy	18	18	19	–
Patients with P/O lobe epilepsy	0	3	1	–
Patients on mono-therapy (%)	25 (46%)	15 (32%)	–	–	n.s.
Median number of AEDs (mode)	2 (1)	2 (1)	–	–	n.s.
Number of patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (%)	26 (48%)	28 (59%)	–	–	n.s.
Valproate mean daily dose (median), mg	900 (1,000)	–	–	–

VPA+, valproate users; VPA-, non-VPA users; TLE, temporal lobe epilepsy; F, frontal; I, insular; C, central; P, parietal; O, occipital.

^*Non-VPA users were older and showed more frequently a “focal epilepsy phenotype” respect with other patients' groups.

^**Drug-naïve patients had a shorter disease duration respect with other epilepsy groups.