Objective: to obtain additional Russian data on the efficacy of Depakine Chronosphere as first-line monotherapy in the treatment of epilepsy in children without epileptic encephalopathy.

Subjects and methods. This was a short-term open-label, prospective observational study performed in the real treatment setting. The observation of patients lasted at least 2 months. The study included 297 patients aged 2 months to 17 years with varying epilepsy other than epileptic encephalopathies. The patients received Depakine Chronosphere in an average daily dose of 26.9±8.2 mg/kg. The efficacy of the drug was objectively evaluated from the change in the number of attacks; in addition, a physician and a patient or his/her parents made a subjective assessment of therapeutic effectiveness. The safety of therapy was judged from the reports made by the patients ' parents on adverse events recorded during the observation period.

Results. More than 90% responded to Depakine Chronosphere well (epileptic seizures ceased or reduced in number). Epileptic seizures completely disappeared in 48.8% of the patients. The drug proved to be effective in different (both partial and generalized) forms of epilepsy. Depakine Chronosphere was well tolerated in this study. No adverse events were seen in 7.41% of the patients and permitted the drug to be discontinued in as low as 0.34%. The physicians and the patients' parents unanimously evaluated therapeutic efficiency as very good and good in more than 90% of cases.