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Background: Stroke is the most common cause of newly diagnosed epilepsy in the elderly, ahead of degenerative disorders, brain tumors, and head trauma. Stroke accounts for 30-50% of unprovoked seizures in patients aged ≥ 60 years. This review discusses the current understanding of epidemiology, risk factors, mechanisms, prevention, and treatment opportunities for post-stroke epilepsy (PSE)., Methods: We performed a literature search in the PubMed and Cochrane Library databases. The keywords "stroke, epilepsy", "stroke, seizure", "post-stroke seizure", "post-stroke epilepsy" were used to identify the clinical and experimental articles on PSE. All resulting titles and abstracts were evaluated, and any relevant article was considered. The reference lists of all selected papers and reference lists of selected review papers were manually analyzed to find other potentially eligible articles., Results: PSE occurs in about 6% of stroke patients within several years after the event. The main risk factors are cortical lesion, initial stroke severity, young age and seizures in acute stroke period (early seizures, ES). Other risk factors, such as a cardioembolic mechanism or circulation territory involvement, remain debated. The role of ES as a risk factor of PSE could be underestimated especially in young age. Mechanism of epileptogenesis may involve gliosis scarring, alteration in synaptic plasticity, etc.; and ES may enhance these processes. Statins especially in the acute period of stroke are possible agents for PSE prevention presumably due to their anticonvulsant and neuroprotection effects. Antiepileptic drugs (AED) monotherapy is enough for seizure prevention in most cases of PSE; but no evidence was found for its efficiency against epileptic foci formation. The growing interest in PSE has led to a notable increase in the number of published articles each year. To aid in navigating this expanding body of literature, several tables are included in the manuscript., Conclusion: Further studies are needed for better understanding of the pathophysiology of PSE and searching the prevention strategies., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no conflict of interests., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: To determine the prevalence of active epilepsy in two southeastern rural Kansas counties., Methods: Medical records were abstracted from the emergency rooms, out- and inpatient services and clinics of 9 hospitals, from 10 doctors' offices, and 1 nursing home in and surrounding the two counties. Letters were mailed from hospitals and doctors' offices to invite their potentially eligible patients to participate in an interview. Medical record information and the interview, when available, were used for the final determination of active epilepsy, seizure type, etiology, syndrome, age, and gender in consensus conferences. Prevalence of epilepsy was calculated, and capture-recapture methodology, which estimates prevalence based on what is known about the population, was employed to assess active epilepsy in the two counties., Results: This study identified 404 individuals with active prevalent epilepsy who visited at least one of the 20 facilities during the observation period. The overall prevalence of active epilepsy was 7.2 per 1000. The seizure type for 71.3% of prevalent cases was unknown; among the 76 cases with known and classifiable seizure type, 55.3% had focal with secondary generalized seizures. Among the 222 cases with classifiable etiology, 53.1% were idiopathic/cryptogenic. About 75% (n=301) were captured at only one center, 72% (n=75) of the remaining 103 patients were captured at two centers, and 28 patients were identified at three or more centers. The capture-recapture assessment yielded an estimation of 982 prevalent patients. The overall estimated prevalence of epilepsy in the two Kansas counties using capture-recapture was 17 per 1000., Conclusions: The crude prevalence of epilepsy, using medical record survey methods, was similar to, but on the high end, of other total population prevalence studies in the United States. The capture-recapture assessment suggested that epilepsy prevalence might be considerably higher than the crude prevalence., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: This study describes the epidemiology of epilepsy on the Arizona-Mexico border., Methods: Households in Southern Arizona were identified using two strategies. County-wide random digit dialing telephone surveys were supplemented with door-to-door recruitment in three Arizona border communities. Utilizing a two-step screening process, individuals with a seizure disorder or epilepsy were identified. A consensus diagnosis was arrived at after reviewing results from the detailed interview, medical records and clinical examination., Results: A total of 15,738 household individuals were surveyed. Two hundred and three individuals were identified as having had epilepsy at some point in their life; 25% of them were previously not diagnosed. The sex and age-adjusted prevalence estimate was 14.3 per 1000 (95% CI: 12.5-16.1) for lifetime epilepsy, and 11.8 per 1000 (CI: 10.2-13.5) for active epilepsy (seizures in the past 5 years or currently taking antiseizure medications). Non-Hispanic Whites were two times more likely to have active epilepsy than Hispanics. The majority of individuals with lifetime history of epilepsy had idiopathic or cryptogenic epilepsy; most were localization-related epilepsy although the exact location could not be determined for the majority. Although most individuals with epilepsy report receiving care from a neurology specialist, they were more likely to have visited a non-specialist in the past 3 months., Significance: The lower prevalence of epilepsy among Hispanics compared to non-Hispanics supports previous survey findings in the Southwest US and may be due to language, acculturation factors, stigma, or a reflection of the "healthy immigrant effect". The surprisingly high proportion of previously un-diagnosed individuals shows a need for further investigation as well as a need to increase community awareness., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Recent studies have provided much needed data on the probability of seizure remission among adults with chronic intractable epilepsy treated medically. Here we provide an extended follow-up to our earlier study in order to provide a more comprehensive picture of long-term prognosis in this patient population during medical treatment. The prevalence cohort was followed for two outcomes-complete seizure remission for ≥ 12 months and subsequent seizure relapse among those attaining a seizure remission. The study outcomes were estimated using Kaplan-Meier analysis. We found that the probability of attaining a ≥ 12 months of complete seizure freedom to be approximately 3-4% per year through 8 years of follow-up. By year 5 since the start of seizure remission, the cumulative probability of seizure relapse was 81%, although only half of the patients with seizure relapse went on to experience their previous seizure frequency., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Unlabelled: This study is the first analysis of the epidemiology of epilepsy in the Russian Federation (RF), in the English medical literature. The RF is geographically the largest territory in the world with a population of 142 million. The study evaluated prevalence of epilepsy in older teenagers and adults in 14 regions of the RF with total population of 517,624 persons (about 0.34% of all the population of the RF). Study sites were located in both European (Western population) and Siberian (Eastern population) regions of Russia. We identified 1753 patients with established epilepsy (1033 men, 720 women) from available medical information sources. Epilepsy cases were evaluated by study neurologists or epileptologists; all the patients underwent EEG, one third - neuroimaging. The age adjusted prevalence of epilepsy, standardized to the European Standard Million was 3.40 (95%CI: 3.26-3.55) per 1000. Prevalence was higher among men-4.50 (95%CI: 4.25-4.76) than among women-2.52 (95%CI: 2.35-2.69) (p < 0.0001). Prevalence in the Eastern population was significantly higher than in the Western population. The highest prevalence was found in the age group 50-59 years. Localization-related (focal) epilepsies/epilepsy syndromes were diagnosed in the majority (81.6%). In about one-third of those with localization-related epilepsies etiology remained undetermined. Head injury was the main identified cause of epilepsy, followed by cerebrovascular disorders., Conclusion: The prevalence of epilepsy in the population ≥ 14 y.o. in Russia is consistent with results of the studies in adults in other European countries, although at lower end of the range. Age and gender trends are similar., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: "Acute repetitive seizures" (ARS) is a term to describe a condition manifest by multiple seizures occurring over a relatively brief period of time -generally 24 hours- in patients with epilepsy. There is limited information regarding the epidemiology of ARS in the general population., Methods: We performed a historical cohort study using data from the United Kingdom General Practice Research Database (GPRD) to identify all incident and prevalent cases of active epilepsy in 2005. From among this group, we identified individuals at risk for ARS. This included those with "catastrophic epilepsy syndromes of childhood" (CE), and those with a history of seizure clustering in the context of other epilepsy syndromes., Results: We identified 21,010 people with active epilepsy in the GPRD in 2005; prevalence 7.2/1000; age adjusted to the European Standard Population, 6.7; incidence 50/100,000 per year, age-adjusted 48/100,000. We identified 665 people at risk for ARS. The prevalence of CE in the general population was 1.2/10,000 and that of cluster seizures was 1.1/10,000. We estimated the crude prevalence of ARS in the general population to be 2.3/10,000; age adjusted 2.5 (CI, 2.3-2.7. The prevalence of ARS was highest in those 0-4 years of age (5.9/10,000) and fell with advancing age to 0.5/10,000 in those age 70 and older)., Conclusions: This is the first population-based study to provide information on the prevalence of ARS. ARS affects about 3% of the population with epilepsy and 0.02% of the general population. More studies are needed to further evaluate this serious epilepsy phenomenon.

We examined whether duration of epilepsy prior to temporal lobe resection has decreased over the years as a result of increasing body of evidence in the literature showing the benefits of anterior temporal resection. We stratified the 213 patients, who had their first temporal lobe resection at our center between 1996 and 2007 into three groups in order to detect any trends in duration of epilepsy: group A (surgery between 1996 and 1999); group B (surgery between 2000 and 2003); group C (surgery between 2004 and 2007). No difference in mean duration of epilepsy was detected between the three groups (p=0.54). The mean duration in epilepsy prior to temporal lobe resection has persisted at greater than 20 years during the past two decades.

Regional differences in the clinical manifestations of human neurocysticercosis (NCC) may indicate a role of host genetics. We examined whether there is familial aggregation of seizures in first-degree relatives of NCC patients with seizure versus NCC patients without seizure as presenting symptom in a group of patients in Ecuador. The results of our analyses were null, and there was no trend toward familial aggregation of seizures in NCC patients.

Purpose: To estimate the prevalence of epilepsy in a racially and ethnically diverse neighborhood in New York City., Methods: We used random-digit dialing to identify people with a history of epilepsy. We estimated the prevalence of active epilepsy and lifetime epilepsy., Results: The age-adjusted prevalence of active epilepsy was 5.0 per 1000, and that of lifetime epilepsy was 5.9 per 1000. Prevalence appeared higher in Hispanics (active prevalence: 6.3 per 1000; lifetime prevalence: 7.5 per 1000) than in non-Hispanics (active prevalence: 4.1 per 1000; lifetime prevalence: 4.7 per 1000). Blacks appeared to have a lower prevalence of active epilepsy (5.2 per 1000) than whites (5.9 per 1000), but a higher lifetime prevalence (7.5 per 1000 vs. 5.9 per 1000). Ethnic and racial differences in access to epilepsy care were evident both in terms of drug treatment and use of emergency departments for care., Conclusions: The prevalence of epilepsy in this predominantly minority urban community is similar to that reported in other contemporary studies. Less access to health care for black and Hispanic respondents, compared with white respondents, may have influenced self-reported active epilepsy prevalence estimates since the definition includes recent use of antiseizure medication.

We hypothesized and found that the co-occurrence of migraine with aura (MA) with major depression (MD) or with suicide attempt (SA) increases the risk for developing unprovoked seizure more than these conditions alone. Number of conditions showed a linear relationship to seizure risk. This may reflect a new condition cluster defined by MA, MD, SA and unprovoked seizures. Identifying the biological underpinnings this cluster may affect clinical diagnosis and treatment.

The risk of recurrence after an initial febrile seizure was 25% in a population-based cohort of 639 children followed from their first febrile seizure. Prognostic factors were an increasing risk of recurrence with younger age at first febrile seizure, a first degree relative with febrile seizures and complex features of the first febrile seizure. The effect of complex features was modified by age at first febrile seizure and family history in that complex features alone did not increase risk of recurrence but further increased the risk for children under 18 months at first seizure and/or with a positive family history. The prognostic factors for all febrile convulsions recurrences were also prognostic for having subsequent complex febrile convulsions. Children with none of the prognostic factors had only a 3% risk of a future complex febrile seizure while children under 18 months at first febrile convulsion and a positive family history or complex features had about a 20% risk of a subsequent complex febrile seizure.