Original articlePerinatal Stroke and the Risk of Developing Childhood Epilepsy
Section snippets
Population
This study was conducted at the Riley Hospital for Children, Indianapolis, Indiana. Sixty-four children with perinatal arterial ischemic stroke were initially identified using a combination of the following techniques: review of neurology clinic records from January 1990 to January 2007; patient referral; and International Classification of Disease, 9th revision, clinical modification code searches from May 1, 1999 to May 1, 2004 using codes 767 (neonatal stroke), 433 (occlusion and
Patient Population
Sixty-four children with perinatal arterial ischemic stroke were identified. Thirty-six (56%) were male. Forty-eight (75%) presented in the NICU with seizures. All children with seizures were treated with phenobarbital. Additional medications used included lorazepam (8), phenytoin (8), diazepam (1), and fosphenytoin (1). Additional presentations that prompted neurological evaluation included apnea (19), respiratory distress (12), abnormal tone (11), poor feeding (9), poor respiratory effort
Discussion
Seizures are a frequent presenting sign of perinatal arterial ischemic stroke, and childhood epilepsy is a frequent resulting morbidity. In our cohort, 75% (48 of 64) of children with perinatal stroke presented with seizures, and 67 % (41 of 61 with ≥6 months of follow-up) had or developed epilepsy after 6 months of age. Epilepsy resolved in 13 children, so 46% (28 of 61) had epilepsy as of last follow-up. Sixty-four percent (18 of 28) of the children with epilepsy were eventually seizure-free
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Cited by (0)
- 1
Dr Golomb is supported by the National Institutes of Health NINDS grant K23 NS048024 and the Clarian Values Fund grant VFR-171.
- 2
Dr Williams is supported by the National Institutes of Health NINDS R01 NS 39571 and a VA Health Services Research and Development Career Award.