MLchartDataset catalogue

Levetiracetam

Term · Oncology and biomedicine · MLC-T-ONC-004806

  1. A drug used to treat seizures (involuntary muscle movements) caused by epilepsy (a group of brain disorders). Levetiracetam is being studied in the treatment of seizures in patients with cancer that has spread to the brain. It is a type of anticonvulsant. Also called Keppra.

  2. A pyrrolidine with antiepileptic activity. The exact mechanism through which levetiracetam exerts its effects is unknown but does not involve inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitter activity. Stereoselective binding of levetiracetam was confined to synaptic plasma membranes in the central nervous system with no binding occurring in peripheral tissue. Levetiracetam inhibits burst firing without affecting normal neuronal excitability, which suggests that it may selectively prevent hyper-synchronization of epileptiform burst firing and propagation of seizure activity.

Table 1. Record
IdentifierMLC-T-ONC-004806
FieldOncology and biomedicine
SynonymsKeppra
ReferencesNCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms; National Cancer Institute Thesaurus (CC BY 4.0)
Record as JSON
{
  "id": "MLC-T-ONC-004806",
  "term": "Levetiracetam",
  "field": "Oncology and biomedicine",
  "definitions": [
    "A drug used to treat seizures (involuntary muscle movements) caused by epilepsy (a group of brain disorders). Levetiracetam is being studied in the treatment of seizures in patients with cancer that has spread to the brain. It is a type of anticonvulsant. Also called Keppra.",
    "A pyrrolidine with antiepileptic activity. The exact mechanism through which levetiracetam exerts its effects is unknown but does not involve inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitter activity. Stereoselective binding of levetiracetam was confined to synaptic plasma membranes in the central nervous system with no binding occurring in peripheral tissue. Levetiracetam inhibits burst firing without affecting normal neuronal excitability, which suggests that it may selectively prevent hyper-synchronization of epileptiform burst firing and propagation of seizure activity."
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    "Keppra"
  ],
  "references": [
    "NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms",
    "National Cancer Institute Thesaurus"
  ],
  "url": "https://mlchart.com/terminology/oncology/levetiracetam/"
}

Record 10,055 of 17,717 in Oncology and biomedicine terminology (MLC-0111). Request the full dataset.