A pooled treatment response is not a head-to-head estimate against every benzodiazepine regimen.
A systematic review assembled thirty intravenous valproate studies involving varied forms of status epilepticus. It included controlled trials and uncontrolled series and reported seizure termination in a substantial proportion of assessable cases. Some comparisons involved diazepam.
Treatment order, prior medicines, seizure definitions and study quality differed. A pooled percentage combines settings with different baseline prognoses and does not isolate a universal second-line benefit.
When using the review, specify whether a benzodiazepine had already failed, how termination was verified and whether relapse was counted. The overall response should not be assigned to an individual patient or treated as proof that a different rescue sequence would have prevented injury.
Source: PMC4078236, supplied full-text paper. Findings are paraphrased; case-review implications are an interpretation.
Related: Forensic Toxicology: expert analysis and case review.