Epilepsia
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Status epilepticus (SE) represents a life-threatening condition, requiring pharmacologic therapy and neurointensive care. Infectious complications in SE are suspected to be frequent and worsen outcome. However, little is known about their incidence during SE and their impact on course and outcome. The aim of this study was to determine the incidence and time of onset of infections during SE, as well as their association with particular SE courses, length of hospitalization, intensive care unit (ICU) stay, and outcome. ⋯ Infections during SE are frequent and associated with higher mortality, prolonged ICU stay, and higher rates of RSE. Further trials are needed to provide evidence of a causative relation between infections and outcomes of SE, followed by investigations on underlying mechanisms and preventive strategies.
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Intracranial electroencephalography (EEG) is performed as part of an epilepsy surgery evaluation when noninvasive tests are incongruent or the putative seizure-onset zone is near eloquent cortex. Determining the seizure-onset zone using intracranial EEG has been conventionally based on identification of specific ictal patterns with visual inspection. High-frequency oscillations (HFOs, >80 Hz) have been recognized recently as highly correlated with the epileptogenic zone. However, HFOs can be difficult to detect because of their low amplitude. Therefore, the prevalence of ictal HFOs and their role in localization of epileptogenic zone on intracranial EEG are unknown. ⋯ Our study shows that ictal HFOs are commonly found with intracranial EEG in our population largely of children with cortical dysplasia, and have localizing value. The use of ictal HFOs may add more promising information compared to interictal HFOs because of the evidence of ictal propagation and followed by clinical aspect of seizures. Complete resection of HFOs is a favorable prognostic indicator for surgical outcome.
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Despite enormous data collection and analysis efforts, the genetic influences on common epilepsies remain mostly unknown. We propose that reasons for the lack of progress can be traced to three factors: (1) A reluctance to consider fine-grained phenotype definitions based on extensive and carefully collected clinical data; (2) the pursuit of genetic analysis methods that are popular but poorly conceived and are inadequate to the task of resolving the problems inherent in common disease studies; (3) preconceived ideas about the genetic mechanisms that cause epilepsy (which we have discussed elsewhere). We propose a paradigm for finding epilepsy-related loci and alleles that has proven successful in other common diseases.
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Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) and arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) are common: their asymptomatic prevalence on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is 1 in 625 and 1 in 2,000, respectively. The risk of epileptic seizure(s) for people with AVMs and CCMs affects their domestic, social, and professional lives, and may influence their decisions about treatment. This article summarizes the seizure risks for people with AVMs and CCMs, gleaned from published original articles indexed in OVID Medline and Embase before 1 January 2012. ⋯ Features associated with the occurrence of epileptic seizures for CCM are lesion multiplicity and cortical CCM location, whereas for AVM the most consistently reported associations are younger age, temporal location, cortical involvement, and nidus diameter >3 cm. In the absence of prior intracranial hemorrhage and nonhemorrhagic focal neurologic deficit, the 5-year risk of developing epilepsy following a first seizure is 58% for AVM and 94% for CCM, though there is no difference in the chance of achieving 2-year seizure freedom in this time frame (45% AVM vs. 47% CCM). Observational case series describe encouraging differences in seizure frequency before and after AVM and CCM treatment, but the shortage of studies demonstrating dramatic effects in comparison to concurrent control groups justifies the need for more controlled studies, ideally with randomized treatment allocation when the benefits of AVM or CCM treatment are uncertain.
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Early surgical intervention can be advantageous in the treatment of refractory temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The success of TLE surgery relies on accurate lateralization of the seizure onset. The purpose of this study was to determine whether resting functional MRI (fMRI) connectivity mapping of the hippocampus has the potential to complement conventional presurgical evaluations in distinguishing left from right TLE. In addition, we sought to determine whether this same network might separate patients with favorable from unfavorable postoperative outcomes. ⋯ This study identified a region in the ventral lateral nucleus of the right thalamus whose connectivity to the hippocampi separates left from right TLE subjects. This suggests that the quantification of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) connectivity across this network may be a potential indicator of lateralization of TLE that may be added to other presurgical MRI assessments. Further validation in a larger, independent cohort is required.