Objective　To investigate the association between multi-drug resistant 1 (MDR1) gene C3435T and T129C polymorphism with refractory epilepsy in children. Methods A total of 260 children including 60 refractory epilepsy, 100 drugresponsive epilepsy, and 100 healthy children were enrolled. The genotypes for MDR1 polymorphisms were determined by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis.The distribution of genotypes and allele frequencies of the three groups were compared. Results The distribution of TT/TC/CC genotypes and T/C allele frequencies of C3435T showed no significant difference between drug-resistant patients and drug-responsive patients or normal control group (P>0.05). Drug-resistant patients were more likely to have the TC genotype and the C allele at T129C when compared with the drugresponsive patients and the normal control group (P<0.05). Conclusions T129C polymorphism of the MDR1 gene was associated with refractory epilepsy in children.