Objective: To assess the prognosis of newly diagnosed epilepsy prospectively over a two year period in an adult patient population.
Material and Method: 106 patients (62 male, 44 female, 24-79 years) with newly diagnosed epilepsy or new onset seizures were enrolled in this prospective observational study. The history, neurological examination, laboratory tests, electroencephalography (EEG), provoking factors, neuroimaging findings and seizure types were taken into account . Patients are currently being followed at our outpatient clinic. Prognosis in terms of remission was determined by following up the patients each two or six months after the index seizure.
Results: Patients with simple partial seizures were found to have a higher recurrence rate (66,7%) than the patients with other seizure types.
Poor prognostic factors for seizure recurrence were; admittance with status epilepticus, having epileptiform EEGs (recurrence rate 56.5%), number of seizures at the admittance (patients with more than one seizure at the admittance had a recurrence rate of 54.3%) and having concomittant psychiatric and/or systemic diseases.
Patients with symptomatic epilepsy experienced more recurrent seizures (64.8%) than the other groups despite optimal therapy. Recurrence in the cryptogenic group was 37.5% and no relapse was observed in the idiopathic group.
Conclusion: In our study, the relevant factors for seizure recurrence were; symptomatic epilepsy, epileptiform EEG abnormalities, presentation with status epilepticus, concomittan psychiatric/systemic diseases, seizure type and the seizure number(s) at the admittance .
Key Words: Epilepsy, Prognosis, Recurrence, Seizure type
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