Precision medicine in epilepsy has a long way to go before it can reliably be expected to produce therapeutic benefits in the way that is being seen in oncology, leading neurologists say.

In fact, therapy changes that are not rationally based on genetic testing results seem to be more effective than those that are, a study suggests.

UK-led neurologists examined a real-world cohort of 293 adults and children with epilepsy (45% male, 53% adults) from six highly-specialised epilepsy centres across the UK, Italy and Germany.

Most participants had tried multiple antiseizure drugs (median five) before undergoing genetic testing and all had received a positive result showing a genetic anomaly that their treating doctors thought explained their epilepsy.