Intravenous levetiracetam in clinical practice - Results from an independent registry

Purpose: Most common clinical studies with antiepileptic drugs do not reflect medical everyday practice due to their strict in- and exclusion criteria and specifications of treatment regimens. Here we present a large non-interventional registry with the intention to evaluate the spectrum of applications in daily use and the efficacy and tolerability of intravenously given levetiracetam (LEV-iv). Methods: In a prospective approach of 17 neurological and neuropediatric centres in Germany LEV-iv treated patients of all ages were included over a period of 10 months. The observational period was 10 days with daily documentation of LEV-iv administration, type and frequency of seizures, currently used drugs and doses, and adverse events (AEs). In addition, treatment efficacy and tolerability were assessed by patients and physicians at study end as well as practicability of LEV-iv using a five-step scale. Results: In 95 patients LEV-iv was administered, 93 were included into the analysis. The median LEV-iv dose was 1500 mg (range 110-6000 mg) per day. Median age was 66 years (range 0.7-90.3 years). The majority of patients (n = 70, 75%) suffered from status epilepticus (SE, n = 55, 59%) and acute seizure clusters (n = 15, 16%). Of those with SE, 41 patients (75%) had SE for the first time. Acute seizure clusters and SE terminated in 83% after LEV-iv administration. A total of 29 adverse events were reported in 17 of the 95 patients from the safety set. Ten of these were at least possibly related to LEV-iv treatment. Slight decrease of blood pressure during the infusion (3 patients each) was captured most frequently. No serious side effect was observed. Physicians rated the efficacy and tolerability of LEV-iv treatment as good or very good in 78% and 82% of the cases, respectively. Conclusion: In this large observational study of everyday practise the use of LEV-iv exhibited a remarkable good response and tolerability in patients with acute onset seizures (mostly SE). Further randomized controlled studies, like the established status epilepticus trial (ESET) are needed to confirm these findings. (C) 2015 British Epilepsy Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Solar neutrinos spectroscopy with borexino phase-II

Solar neutrinos have played a central role in the discovery of the neutrino oscillation mechanism. They still are proving to be a unique tool to help investigate the fusion reactions that power stars and further probe basic neutrino properties. The Borexino neutrino observatory has been operationally acquiring data at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy since 2007. Its main goal is the real-time study of low energy neutrinos (solar or originated elsewhere, such as geo-neutrinos). The latest analysis of experimental data, taken during the so-called Borexino Phase-II (2011-present), will be showcased in this talk-yielding new high-precision, simultaneous wide band flux measurements of the four main solar neutrino components belonging to the \u201cpp\u201d fusion chain (pp, pep, 7 Be, 8 B), as well as upper limits on the remaining two solar neutrino fluxes (CNO and hep)

Radioactive source experiments in Borexino

© Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence. Most of the neutrino oscillation results can be explained by the three-neutrino paradigm. However several anomalies in short baseline oscillation data (L/E of about 1 m/MeV) could be interpreted by invoking a light sterile neutrino. This new state would be separated from the standard neutrinos by a squared mass difference Δm 2new ∼ 0.1-1 eV 2 and would have mixing angles of sin 2 2θ ee ≳ 0.01 in the electron disappearance channel. This new neutrino, often called sterile, would not feel standard model interactions but mix with the others. We present the CeSOX and CrSOX projects to constrain the existence of eV-scale sterile neutrinos by deploying an intense radioactive β-source next to the Borexino detector

Limiting neutrino magnetic moments with Borexino Phase-II solar neutrino data

A search for the solar neutrino effective magnetic moment has been performed using data from 1291.5 days exposure during the second phase of the Borexino experiment. No significant deviations from the expected shape of the electron recoil spectrum from solar neutrinos have been found, and a new upper limit on the effective neutrino magnetic moment of mu(eff)(nu) < 2.8 x 10(-11) mu(B) at 90% C.L. has been set using constraints on the sum of the solar neutrino fluxes implied by the radiochemical gallium experiments. Using the limit for the effective neutrino moment, new limits for the magnetic moments of the neutrino flavor states, and for the elements of the neutrino magnetic moments matrix for Dirac and Majorana neutrinos, are derived

Radioactive source experiments in Borexino

Most of the neutrino oscillation results can be explained by the three-neutrino paradigm. However several anomalies in short baseline oscillation data (L/E of about 1 m/MeV) could be interpreted by invoking a light sterile neutrino. This new state would be separated from the standard neutrinos by a squared mass difference \u394m2new 3c 0.1-1 eV2 and would have mixing angles of sin2 2\u3b8ee 73 0.01 in the electron disappearance channel. This new neutrino, often called sterile, would not feel standard model interactions but mix with the others. We present the CeSOX and CrSOX projects to constrain the existence of eV-scale sterile neutrinos by deploying an intense radioactive \u3b2-source next to the Borexino detector

Solar neutrinos spectroscopy with borexino phase-II

Solar neutrinos have played a central role in the discovery of the neutrino oscillation mechanism. They still are proving to be a unique tool to help investigate the fusion reactions that power stars and further probe basic neutrino properties. The Borexino neutrino observatory has been operationally acquiring data at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso in Italy since 2007. Its main goal is the real-time study of low energy neutrinos (solar or originated elsewhere, such as geo-neutrinos). The latest analysis of experimental data, taken during the so-called Borexino Phase-II (2011-present), will be showcased in this talk-yielding new high-precision, simultaneous wide band flux measurements of the four main solar neutrino components belonging to the “pp” fusion chain (pp, pep, 7 Be, 8 B), as well as upper limits on the remaining two solar neutrino fluxes (CNO and hep)

Search for sterile neutrinos with the SOX experiment

In the recent years, the Borexino detector has proven its outstanding performances in detecting neutrinos and antineutrinos in the low energy regime. Consequently, it is an ideal tool to investigate the existence of sterile neutrinos, whose presence has been suggested by several anomalies over the past two decades. The SOX (Short distance neutrino Oscillations with boreXino) project will investigate the presence of sterile neutrinos placing a neutrino and an antineutrino sources in a location under the detector foreseen for this purpose since the construction of Borexino. Interacting in the detector active volume, each beam would create a well detectable spatial wave pattern in case of oscillation of neutrino or antineutrino in a sterile state. Otherwise, the experiment will set a very stringent limit on the existence of a sterile state

The 144 Ce source for SOX

The SOX (Short distance neutrino Oscillations with BoreXino) project aims at testing the light sterile neutrino hypothesis. To do so, two artificials sources of antineutrinos and neutrinos respectively will be consecutively deployed at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in close vicinity to Borexino, a large liquid scintillator detector. This document reports on the source production and transportation. The source should exhibit a long lifetime and a high decay energy, a requirement fullfilled by the 144Ce-144Pr pair at secular equilibrium. It will be produced at FSUE "Mayak" PA using spent nuclear fuel. It will then be shielded and packed according to international regulation and shipped to LNGS across Europe. Knowledge of the Cerium antineutrino generator (CeANG) parameters is crucial for SOX as it can strongly impact the experiment sensitivity. Several apparatuses are being used or designed to characterize CeANG activity, radioactive emission and content. An overview of the measurements performed so far is presented here