title: Fever and fever-related epilepsies.
abstract: Febrile seizures are a common emergency faced by general pediatricians. They are mostly self-limiting, isolated events with no sequelae in later life. A minority are more complex. In the acute stage, there are a small number of underlying etiologies that are important to recognize in order to determine the prognosis accurately and to optimize management. There has been a long-standing debate about the relationship of early febrile seizures to the later development of epilepsy. It is now clear that this risk differs for simple and complex febrile seizures: complex febrile seizures may herald the presentation of a number of epilepsy syndromes of which febrile and illness-related seizures are part of the phenotype. This review examines the existing knowledge on febrile seizures and the various clinical phenotypes to which they are linked.
authors.affiliation: UCL-Institute of Child Health, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London and Young Epilepsy, Lingfield, United Kingdom. h.cross@ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: J Helen
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Cross
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D005334:Fever / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008581:Meningitis / Q000150:complications; D012307:Risk Factors; D003294:Seizures, Febrile / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*