4.8  Undesirable effects

Summary of the safety profile

The pregabalin clinical programme involved over 8900 patients exposed to pregabalin, of whom over 5600 were in double-blind placebo controlled trials. The most commonly reported adverse reactions were dizziness and somnolence. Adverse reactions were usually mild to moderate in intensity. In all controlled studies, the discontinuation rate due to adverse reactions was 12% for patients receiving pregabalin and 5% for patients receiving placebo. The most common adverse reactions resulting in discontinuation from pregabalin treatment groups were dizziness and somnolence.

Paediatric population
The pregabalin safety profile observed in three wo paediatric studies in patients with partial seizures with or without secondary generalization (12-week efficacy and safety study in patients with partial onset seizures, n=295; (pharmacokinetic and tolerability study, n=65; and 1 year open label follow on safety study, n=54) was similar to that observed in the adult studies of patients with epilepsy. The most common adverse events observed in the 12 week study with pregabalin treatment were somnolence, pyrexia, upper respiratory tract infection, increased appetite, weight increased, and nasopharyngitis (see sections 4.2, 5.1 and 5.2).

5.  PHARMACOLOGICAL PROPERTIES

5.1  Pharmacodynamic properties

Pharmacotherapeutic group: Anti-epileptics, other anti-epileptics, ATC code: N03AX16.

Paediatric population
The efficacy and safety of pregabalin as adjunctive treatment for epilepsy in paediatric patients below the age of 12 and adolescents has not been established. The adverse events observed in a pharmacokinetic and tolerability study that enrolled patients from 3 months to 16 years of age (n=65) with partial onset seizures were similar to those observed in adults. Results of a 12-week placebo-controlled study of 295 paediatric patients aged 4 to 16 years perfomed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of pregabalin as adjunctive therapy for the treatment of partial onset seizures and a 1 year open label safety study in 54 paediatric patients from 3 months to 16 years of age with epilepsy indicate that the adverse events of pyrexia and upper respiratory infections were observed more frequently than in adult studies of patients with epilepsy (see sections 4.2, 4.8 and 5.2).

In the 12 week placebo controlled study, paediatric patients were assigned to pregabalin 2.5 mg/kg/day (maximum, 150 mg/day), pregabalin 10 mg/kg/day (maximum, 600 mg/day), or placebo. The percentage of subjects with at least a 50% reduction in partial onset seizures as compared to baseline was 40.6% of subjects treated with pregabalin 10 mg/kg/day (p=0.0068 versus placebo), 29.1% of subjects treated with pregabalin 2.5 mg/kg/day (p=0.2600 versus placebo) and 22.6% of those receiving placebo.