Comparative Trial of IV Lacosamide Versus Phenytoin for Seizure Management

Safety: the primary outcome measure will be the incidence of clinical adverse events. Patients will be evaluated daily during the hospital stay for seizures, fever, neurological changes, cardiovascular, hematologic and dermatologic abnormalities, liver failure, renal failure, and death. Each adverse event will be classified by the principal investigator as attributable or possibly attributable to the study drug versus other events. Serious adverse events for these to study will be defined as those that result in death, prolonged hospitalization, life threatening events, persistent or significant disability, or an important medical event that may not be immediately life threatening or result in death but based upon appropriate medical judgment may jeopardize the participant, or may require medical or surgical intervention to prevent one of the other outcomes listed.

Efficacy: the secondary endpoints will be seizure frequency and long-term outcomes (measure by disability scales). All patients will be monitored on continuous EEG for 72 hours or until a week and following commands. Since over 50% of initial seizure activity in these patients are usually subclinical as reported in the finished studies, and about 90% of the seizures happen within the first two days of admission to the ICU, the investigator would stop EEG recordings once patient awake, or by 72 hours after admission if there were no seizures.