Early predictors of intractable epilepsy in children: A case control study

Muhammad Akbar Malik, Tipu Sultan, Abid Mahmood Tarrar, Shabnam, Farrah Naz, Tayaba Khawar Butt

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Study Type: Case control, Hospital based. Site: Epilepsy Centre, The Children's Hospital, Lahore-Pakistan. Duration: From 1st Sept 05 to 30th Nov 06 Background: Knowing the prognosis of epilepsy in children would undoubtly influence the treatment strategy. Patients & Methods: All the children, age 1 year to 16 years receiving anti-epileptic drugs for their idiopathic or cryptogenic epilepsy were the study population. After six months of commencement of treatment various factors associated with well control the ("controls") and intractability the ("cases") were analyzed and a univariate comparison was done between various factors for these two groups. Results: Over a period of 14 months, 520 children, 33% the "control" and 67% the "cases" among these patients were enrolled for this study. Statistically, male gender history of birth asphyxia, initial seizure type, past head trauma, previous CNS infection and family history of epilepsy are not the risk factors, whereas seizures starting in infancy, seizures episodes >10 before commencing treatment, neonatal seizures and neurological deficit present at presentation were the risk factors for intractable epilepsy. Myoclonic seizures, status epilepticus before starting treatment and infantile spasm were seen in the "case" group only. Conclusion & recommendation: We conclude children having risk factors for intractable epilepsy have poor prognosis and recommend that such children should be referred to epilepsy centre as soon as possible.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)17-24
Number of pages8
JournalPakistan Paediatric Journal
Volume31
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - 2007
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Idiopathic/cryptogenic epilepsy
  • Intractable seizures
  • Myoclonus
  • Status epilepticus

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