Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment (Aug 2017)
Risk of post-traumatic epilepsy after severe head injury in patients with at least one seizure
Abstract
Wei Chen,1 Ming-De Li,2 Gui-Fang Wang,1 Xia-Feng Yang,1 Lin Liu,1 Fan-Gang Meng3 1Department of Neurology, Liaocheng People’s Hospital, Liaocheng, 2Department of Neurosurgery, The People’s Hospital in Ling Cheng District, DeZhou, Shandong, 3Department of Functional Neurosurgery, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China Background: To explore the incidence and risk factors, including type of seizures for post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).Subjects and methods: This was a retrospective follow-up study of patients discharged from Liaocheng People’s Hospital between March 2011 and June 2015 with a diagnosis of post-traumatic seizures. Risk factors for PTE were evaluated in 68 inpatients by using Kaplan–Meier curves and the Cox model.Results: Complete clinical information was available for 68 patients. A total of 54 cases (79.4%) were diagnosed as presenting with PTE, occurring from 10 days to 179 months after severe TBI. Nineteen out of 54 cases (35.2%) had been defined as PTE within the first 6 months after the trauma, 17 cases (31.5%) within 7–12 months, 8 cases (14.8%) within 13–24 months, 2 cases (3.7%) within 25–36 months, and 8 cases (14.8%) within 37–179 months after the TBI. The Kaplan–Meier curves demonstrated that simple partial seizures, surgical treatment, and onset of seizures occurring within 6 months after injury were associated with PTE.Conclusions: The Cox model indicated that, for patients aged >34 years at the time of injury, the PTE risk was 2.55 times greater than for those aged ≤34 years. In addition, simple partial seizures, surgical treatment and onset of seizures occurring within 6 months after injury were significant risk factors for the development of PTE. Keywords: post-traumatic epilepsy, risk factor, post-traumatic seizure
