A recently published clinical study in the Journal of the
American Medical Association has answered an urgent question that long puzzled
ER pediatricians: Is the drug lorazepam really safer and more effective than diazepam
– the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medication as first line
therapy most often used by emergency room doctors to control major epileptic
seizures in children?
The answer to that question – based on a double-blind,
randomized clinical trial that compared outcomes in 273 seizure patients, about
half of whom were given lorazepam – is a clear-cut “no,” said Prashant V.
Mahajan, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A, one of the authors of the study.