title: Epileptic seizures following subcortical infarcts.
abstract: Stroke is one of the most frequent causes of seizures in adulthood. Subcortical infarcts have been associated with post-stroke epileptic seizures, although less frequently than cortical ischaemia. We studied 113 patients from a hospital stroke registry. The patients had subcortical non-lacunar infarcts (64 striatocapsular infarcts, 13 thalamic, 8 choroidal artery territory, 28 internal border zone and white matter medullary infarcts) and at least 1 year of follow-up. Only 4 patients (3.5%) with striatocapsular infarcts suffered an epileptic seizure. Two seizures occurred within the first 24 h, 1 within the first month and 1 within the first year of stroke onset. Emboligenic cardiac conditions were significantly more common in patients with seizures (difference 37%; 95% confidence intervals 2-72%). Subsequently to subcortical infarct, epileptic seizures are infrequent, tend to occur early after stroke and have a very low 1-year recurrence risk.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Hospital de Santa Maria, Lisboa, Portugal.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bentes
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pimentel
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Ferro
mesh_terms: D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000453:epidemiology*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012008:Recurrence; D012042:Registries; D012307:Risk Factors