Post-traumatic seizure: a multicentric epidemiological study

Abstract

Post-traumatic seizure (PTS) is the development of recurrent seizures following head trauma and has a high clinical relevance. We tried to understand the epidemiology of PTS in a multicentric pro- spective study during the period May 2010 to April 2012. We included 320 patients excluding poor Glasgow coma scale (GCS) ie, <4 and history of previous epilepsy. At a median follow-up of one year, 49 patients (15.31%) developed PTS. Incidence of immediate, early and late onset seizures were 27 (8.4%), 14 (4.4%), 9 (2.8%) respectively. In this study incidence of PTS was high in patients of the age group 20-30 years, with road traffic accident, with poor GCS ie, < 9. High incidence of PTS was associated with x- ray findings of skull fracture and abnormal CT findings. Early use of anticonvulsants is ineffective in preventing early post-traumatic epilepsy.