• Maria Magdalena Rosselló Vadell, Ana Belén Martínez García, Maria Inès Barceló Artigues, and Antonio José Moreno Rojas.
• Servicio de Neurología, Hospital Universitario Son Espases, Palma de Mallorca, Illes Balears, España. Electronic address: mm.rossello.vadell@gmail.com.
• Med Clin (Barc). 2023 Mar 10; 160 (5): 193198193-198.

IntroductionIdiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGI) are an electroclinical syndrome that includes four subsyndromes according to the ILAE 2017 classification. The long-term prognosis of these syndromes is uncertain due to the scarcity and heterogeneity of the studies. The objective of this study is to analyze the long-term prognosis of these syndromes, pharmacological treatment and the seizure recurrence.MethodObservational and retrospective study of a serie of patients diagnosed with EGI. Epidemiological variables, pharmacological treatment, freedom of seizures and recurrence after withdrawal of treatment were collected.ResultsWe included 101 patients, the majority women (56.4%), with a median evolution of epilepsy of 17 years (interquartile range: 7-31). The most frequent syndrome was juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (46.5%), followed by epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizures alone (25.7%), juvenile absence epilepsy (13.9%) and childhood absence epilepsy (13.9%). The 71.29% were on monotherapy and 20.79% on polytherapy, with significant differences between the different syndromes (P=.001). The most widely used drug was valproic acid. 39.6% presented seizure remission at 5 years, but we did not observe significant differences between the different syndromes (P=.982). The recurrence rate was 71.4% after withdrawal of treatment.ConclusionJuvenile myoclonic epilepsy was the most frequent subtype of IGE. We observed significant differences in terms of polytherapy in the different syndromes, although not in the rates of remission of seizures at one year and at five years. The majority of patients with treatment withdrawal relapsed.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

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