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Título

CLINICAL-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL PROFILE OF EPILEPSY IN PATIENTS FOLLOWED-UP SINCE CHILDHOOD IN A UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

Resumo

INTRODUCTION: Epilepsy is a neurological condition with high prevalence in neuropediatric care, requiring lifelong drug treatment in most cases, in addition to multidisciplinary team support. The individual with epilepsy may present neurobiological consequences such as cognitive, behavioral, and social disorders, causing great impact on the patient's quality of life. OBJECTIVES: To describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics and the profile of drug use of epileptic patients followed up as outpatients in a specialized care service. METHODS: Retrospective Cross-sectional study, with consultation of outpatient records of child and adolescent population with epilepsy in a university hospital in Northeastern Brazil. Relative and absolute frequency distribution tables were used for descriptive data analysis. The Chi-square test for independence and Fisher's exact test were applied to analyze the existence of association between variables. The significance level was 5% (p<0.05%), using IBM SPSS 20.0 software. RESULTS: The medical records of 282 patients with epilepsy (143 males and 139 females), aged 2 to 19 years, were analyzed. About the age of onset of epilepsy, the most prevalent age group was those older than 11 years (31.2%), followed by those younger than 2 years (30.9%), schoolchildren between 6 and 10 years represented 23.4% of the sample, and preschoolers between 3 and 5 years corresponded to 14.5%. As for the clinical features of epilepsy, 77.7% had focal epileptic seizures, 11.3% had indeterminate seizures, and 11.3% had generalized seizures. The recorded electroencephalogram of these patients showed alterations in 68% of the sample, with focal alterations being the most observed finding (28.4%). Some comorbidities investigated were migraine (34%) with and without aura, tension-type headache (2%), behavior disorders (20.9%), and sleep disorders (8.5%). Regarding antiepileptic drugs use, 73.3% were monotherapy, while 23.3% were taking two drugs, and only 3.5% were taking three drugs; and no significant difference was observed between males and females for these variables cited. CONCLUSION: As a chronic neurological condition, age of onset of epilepsy is more prevalent in teenagers and infants, with a higher incidence of focal seizures. We also observed that migraine is the main comorbidity diagnosed in these patients. Even in a referral center for epilepsy care, a large proportion of patients are well controlled with monotherapy.

Palavras Chave

Epilepsy. Seizures. Pediatric population.