Solitary epileptic seizures in the clinical practice. Part II: findings of various modifications of EEG examination and imaging methods in patients who experienced solitary unprovoked epileptic seizure.
BACKGROUND
The occurrence of the first unprovoked epileptic seizure always requires thorough examination. The risk of incorrect diagnosis is high, non-epileptic seizures represent 20-33% of newly diagnosed cases. The aim of the study is to evaluate findings of various modifications of EEG examination in the group of patients who experienced solitary unprovoked epileptic seizure and compare benefits of CT and MRI examination of the brain of these patients.


METHODS
The group involved 84 patients hospitalized at the 1st Department of Neurology , Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava between January 1997 and January 2007 after experiencing unprovoked epileptic seizure. It is a retrospective analysis of information from medical records and clinical documentation. For statistic comparing of benefits of various modifications of EEG examination and between CT and MRI examination of the brain binomic test of proportion was used.


RESULTS
Interictal epileptiform EEG graphoelements in native EEG was recorded only in 14.29% of patients. Statistically significantly more epileptiform graphoelements comparing EEG and EEG after sleep deprivation of the patient (SD) with one- hour recording was recorded with 24-hour 8 channels EEG monitoring after SD, EEG after SD with one- hour recording was of no significance comparing to native EEG. MRI examination of the brain was statistically more significant comparing to CT examination.


CONCLUSIONS
Low catchment of epileptiform EEG graphoelements in patients with solitary unprovoked seizure shows the importance of precise history in diagnostics of these patients. Though EEG is a very important examination it is an auxiliary one. We confirmed that MRI examination in patients who experienced solitary unprovoked epileptic seizure is undoubtedly the first choice method.
Kollar
Branislav
B
1st Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia. b.kollar@pobox.sk
Martiniskova
Zuzana
Z
Klobucnikova
Katarína
K
Vachalova
Ivana
I
Waczulikova
Iveta
I
D000328:Adult; D016010:Binomial Distribution; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000592:standards*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000592:standards*