The Factors Related to Intractability in Patients with Partial Epilepsy

Lee, Yeung Ki; Byun, Yeing Ju; Park, Mee Yeong; Hah, Jung Sang; Lee, Se Jin

Abstract

To evaluate the intractability of partial epileptic patients by variables, the author studied 113 patients (uncontrolled: 45, controlled: 68) who were admitted to the Department of Neurology, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University from January, 1991 to August, 1993. The results were as follows. The items related to complex partial seizures, multiple seizure types and a histories of status epilepticus or clusters of seizures were significantly associated with drug-refractoriness (p<0.01). A high frequency of seizures before evaluation was associated with a poor outcome(p<0.01). The presences of known etiology of seizures, neurologic abnormalities and psychiatric disturbance were associated with limited treatment responses(p<0.01, p<0.05, p<0.01). An abnormal EEG findings such as background slowing, focal slowing, epileptiform discharges or secondarily bilateral synchrony were statistically significant (p<0.01). Age at onset, sex, distribution of epileptic foci, duration of seizure before evaluation, family history and abnormal neuroradiologic findings were not statistically significant. By these results, it was suggested that having at least four factors of the above variables were associated with limited treatment response.