Two leading Australian seizure experts are calling on the Department of Health to urgently revise outdated prescribing restrictions on two antiepileptic medications.

Writing in the Medical Journal of Australia, Professors Christian Gericke and Terence O’Brien say the current situation is putting patients at risk and leaving doctors in “a legal and ethical dilemma”.

The key issue is the current PBS restrictions on two effective epilepsy drugs, levetiracetam and lamotrigine, say Professor Gericke, clinical director of neurology at the Prince Charles Hospital in Brisbane and Professor O’Brien, director of neurology at Alfred Health in Melbourne and president of the Epilepsy Society of Australia.

Under the rules, both drugs require streamlined authority for prescription and can only be used if the epileptic condition “has failed to be controlled satisfactorily by other antiepileptic drugs”, effectively rendering them second-line treatments.