title: Incidence of epilepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To estimate the pooled incidence of epilepsy from published studies and investigate sources of heterogeneity in the estimates.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched online databases for incidence studies and used meta-analytic methods to analyze the data.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-three articles met the entry criteria. The median incidence of epilepsy was 50.4/100,000/year (interquartile range [IQR] 33.6-75.6), while it was 45.0 (IQR 30.3-66.7) for high-income countries and 81.7 (IQR 28.0-239.5) for low- and middle-income countries. Population-based studies had higher incidence estimates than hospital-based studies (p = 0.02) while retrospective study design was associated with lower estimates than prospective studies (p = 0.04).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We provide data that could potentially be used to assess the burden and analyze the trends in incidence of epilepsy. Our results support the need for large population-based incidence studies of epilepsy.
authors: Centre for Geographic Medicine Research-Coast, KEMRI, Kilifi 80108, Kenya. angugi@kilifi.kemri-wellcome.org
authors: Anthony K
authors: AK
authors: Ngugi
authors: S M
authors: SM
authors: Kariuki
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Bottomley
authors: I
authors: I
authors: Kleinschmidt
authors: J W
authors: JW
authors: Sander
authors: C R
authors: CR
authors: Newton
mesh_terms: D016208:Databases, Factual; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence