Comparing the Pharmacodynamics of Nasal and Buccal Midazolam Using EEG

Approximately 3 million individuals suffer from epilepsy in America alone and about 200,000 new cases of epilepsy in America are diagnosed each year (Epilepsy Foundation, 2005). Epilepsy can be defined as a condition in which a person has recurrent, unprovoked seizures. Prolonged or back-to-back repetitive seizures, known as "acute repetitive seizures" (ARS), are medical emergencies. ARS can occur unexpectedly, a circumstance for which quick and efficient antiepileptic drugs are needed for household and prehospital use. Currently, benzodiazepines are the antiepileptic drug of choice when dealing with ARS because they are proven to be efficient and take little time to work. Benzodiazepines can be administered by mouth, by vein via a needle (intravenously; IV), rectally, between the cheek and gum (buccally), or in the nose (intranasally; IN). The nasal formulation is not yet FDA-approved. The rectal treatment route has been commonly used for acute seizure treatment in past years, but recent studies propose that the nasal route for benzodiazepines may be better overall for home treatment and easier to administer (see Wermeling, 2009). For many "out of hospital" situations, nasal benzodiazepines can be more convenient and more comfortable than rectal treatment. In addition to the above benefits, nasal benzodiazepines are rapidly absorbed by the blood vessels in the nose and the time of drug administration and cessation of seizures may thus be reduced using nasal routes. This study sets out to characterize how fast buccal and nasal treatments begin to work on the brain by monitoring brain waves during administration of the drug, and to determine whether nasal or buccal administration is best.