Study of Priority between Prognostic Factors of Status Epilepticus in Childhood

Lee, Sang Eun; Kim, Hyoung Sik; Yoo, Hwang Jae

Abstract

PURPOSE: Poor prognostic factors of status epilepticus(SE) in children have been known as less than 1 year of age, generalized tonic clonic type of convulsion, symptomatic etiology, and duration of longer than 12 hours. Through statistical analysis of morbidity and mortality between these poor prognostic factors, we intended to inquire out the priority of every prognostic factor.
METHODS
We selected patients admitted at the Department of Pediatrics of Masan Samsung Hospital because of SE from January to December 2001. We investigated the statistical significance and the priority in morbidity and mortality of each prognostic factor:age, etiology, type of seizure and response to treatment.
RESULTS
There were 38 patients with SE. Age distribution showed that the number of patients less than 3 years old is 29(76.3%). The patients more than 3 years old showed increasing morbidity but there is no statistical significance. In the type of seizure, one patient with a mixed type died. The morbidity in partial seizure was 100% and in mixed type of seizure it was 83.3%(P<0.05). In etiology, one patient with non-febrile SE died. The morbidity in non-febrile SE was 60.9%(P<0.05). In the response of treatment, one patient whose seizure activity was controlled after pentothal infusion died. The morbidities of the groups with in phenytoin or phenobarbital, midazolam, and pentothal were 60.0%, 100%, and 75.0%(P<0.05) respectively. In a multivariate statistical analysis, the etiology factor showed the highest priority between the prognostic factors.
CONCLUSION
Among the prognostic factors of SE, the etiology factor is the most important and has the higher priority than the other prognostic factors.