A study of prevalence of abnormal EEG and its association between various clinical presentations of atypical febrile seizures

Abstract

Background: Quantitative EEG is a rapidly emerging tool in the diagnosis and follow up of various neurological disorders and can act as predictive marker for subsequent epilepsy in children with complex febrile seizure. The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of abnormal electroencephalogram (EEG) and to find the association between Quantitative EEG (qEEG) and various clinical features of atypical febrile seizures(AFS).Methods: EEG was recorded along with clinical features including the age at onset, duration of episode, number of episodes in a day, type of seizure and the recurrences from the children aged between 6-60 months with atypical febrile seizures. EEG recordings were classified into Normal and abnormal EEG with epileptiform changes by the expert interpretation and the distribution of above said clinical features in the both groups were analyzed. It is also attempted to find the association between qEEG and few of the clinical features.Results: Prevalence of abnormal EEG in atypical febrile seizures was 33.9%. There were no significant differences in the distribution of abnormal EEG and their association with various clinical features of AFS. Significantly increased absolute power of θ and α waves were recorded from the frontal montages in the children with epileptiform changes in the EEG.Conclusions: qEEG changes can be also considered as marker of severity of febrile seizure episodes. Many prospective studies with long-term follow up are required to establish the predictability of future epilepsy by qEEG.