The anticonvulsant action of tridione

Summary

Tridione (3, 5, 5-trimethyloxazolidine-2, 4-dione) is a new compound showing marked anticonvulsant and slight sedative action in humans. A preliminary report is made concerning the effectiveness of tridione as compared with phenobarbital and dilantin. In a group of 11 mentally defective institutionalized epileptics, three were better controlled by tridione than with previous medications, six were essentially unchanged, and two had more seizures with tridione than with phenobarbital and dilantin. Nine of the 11 subjects showed a strong anticonvulsant action with tridione, which appears to be as effective as phenobarbital or dilantin in antagonizing convulsions. No major toxic effects were noted, although two patients died of extraneous causes during the experiment. The sedative action of tridione in large dosages is effective in decreasing the noisy overactivity of deteriorated epileptics. It is concluded that tridione is a strong anticonvulsant drug which deserves further intensive investigation.