Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2011 Sep 6;77(10):1005-12.
doi: 10.1212/WNL.0b013e31822cfc90.

Incidence of epilepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Anthony K Ngugi  1 , S M Kariuki, C Bottomley, I Kleinschmidt, J W Sander, C R Newton
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Incidence of epilepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Anthony K Ngugi et al. Neurology. .

Abstract

Objective: To estimate the pooled incidence of epilepsy from published studies and investigate sources of heterogeneity in the estimates.

Methods: We searched online databases for incidence studies and used meta-analytic methods to analyze the data.

Results: Thirty-three articles met the entry criteria. The median incidence of epilepsy was 50.4/100,000/year (interquartile range [IQR] 33.6-75.6), while it was 45.0 (IQR 30.3-66.7) for high-income countries and 81.7 (IQR 28.0-239.5) for low- and middle-income countries. Population-based studies had higher incidence estimates than hospital-based studies (p = 0.02) while retrospective study design was associated with lower estimates than prospective studies (p = 0.04).

Conclusion: We provide data that could potentially be used to assess the burden and analyze the trends in incidence of epilepsy. Our results support the need for large population-based incidence studies of epilepsy.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure
Figure. Search results
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. WHO Epilepsy in the WHO Africa Region: Bridging the Gap: The Global Campaign Against Epilepsy: “Out of the Shadows.” Geneva: WHO; 2004
    1. Ngugi AK, Bottomley C, Kleinschmidt I, Sander JW, Newton CR. Estimation of the burden of active and life-time epilepsy: a meta-analytic approach. Epilepsia 2010;51:883–890 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sander JW. Some aspects of prognosis in the epilepsies: a review. Epilepsia 1993;34:1007–1016 - PubMed
    1. Carpio A, Bharucha NE, Jallon P, et al. Mortality of epilepsy in developing countries. Epilepsia 2005;46(suppl 11):28–32 - PubMed
    1. Diop AG, Hesdorffer DC, Logroscino G, Hauser WA. Epilepsy and mortality in Africa: a review of the literature. Epilepsia 2005;46(suppl 11):33–35 - PubMed