Congenital Malformation among Infants of Epileptic Mothers treated during Pregnancy — The Report of a Collaborative Study Group in Japan

A multi-institutional collaborative study was conducted on the risk of congenital abnormalities among infants of pregnant epileptics. The 902 pregnancies collected by July, 1977, were divided into the treated group, the non-treated group and the unknown group. The malformation rates among live births of the first and the second groups were 11.5% and 2.3%, respectively; however, it was estimated that the rate would have been 6.75% among the treated group if trimethadione-treatment had been avoided. The effects of maternal background and antiepileptic treatment were analyzed fully in connection with the possibility of congenital malformation. This paper is a summary of a collaborative study on the teratogenic effects of antiepileptic drugs which will be published on another paper in detail. The members of the current study group are listed as follows: Teruo Okuma, Ryo Takahashi, Yorio Sato, Toyoji Wada, Tokijiro Sato, Yutaka Fukushima, Hisashi Kumashiro, Tsuneo Ono, Takeo Takahashi, Yasunori Aoki, Hajime Kazamatsuri, Masaaki Inami, Sumiya Komai, Masakazu Seino, Masako Miyakoshi, Takashi Tanimura, Hidebumi Hazama, Ryuzo Kawahara, Saburo Otsuki, Kiyoshi Hosokawa, Kazutoyo Inanaga, Yoichi Nakagawa and Koichi Yamamoto.