Relationship of white matter hyperintensities with clinical features of seizures in patients with epilepsy.

Ferda Ilgen USLU,Mehmet KOLUKISA,İsmail YURTSEVEN,Elif ÇETINTAŞ,Alpay ALKAN

doi:10.1590/0004-282x-anp-2021-0003

Ferda Ilgen USLU, Mehmet KOLUKISA + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1590/0004-282x-anp-2021-0003

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Abstract

Although epilepsy is primarily known as a cortical disorder, there is growing body of research demonstrating white matter alterations in patients with epilepsy. To investigate the prevalence of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and its association with seizure characteristics in patients with epilepsy. The prevalence of WMH in 94 patients with epilepsy and 41 healthy controls were compared. Within the patient sample, the relationship between the presence of WMH and type of epilepsy, frequency of seizures, duration of disease and the number of antiepileptic medications were investigated. The mean age and sex were not different between patients and healthy controls (p>0.2). WMH was present in 27.7% of patients and in 14.6% of healthy controls. Diagnosis of epilepsy was independently associated with the presence of WMH (ß=3.09, 95%CI 1.06-9.0, p=0.039). Patients with focal epilepsy had higher prevalence of WMH (35.5%) than patients with generalized epilepsy (14.7%). The presence of WMH was associated with older age but not with seizure characteristics. WMH is more common in patients with focal epilepsy than healthy controls. The presence of WMH is associated with older age, but not with seizure characteristics.

Highlights

Epilepsy is a common disorder that affects over 60 million people worldwide and in an important contributor to the global burden of neurological disease[1,2]
We investigated the association of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) with type of epilepsy, duration of disease, frequency of seizures, and the number of antiepileptic medications used in patients with epilepsy
We found that the prevalence of WMH in patients with epilepsy were comparable that with healthy controls

Summary

Introduction

Epilepsy is a common disorder that affects over 60 million people worldwide and in an important contributor to the global burden of neurological disease[1,2]. There is accumulating evidence that both focal and generalized epilepsies represent widespread white matter alterations even in the absence of visible structural lesions[8,9,10,11,12,13]. This raises the critical question of whether visible white matter lesions would be more common in patients with epilepsy, but this has not been well studied. Objective: To investigate the prevalence of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) and its association with seizure characteristics in patients with epilepsy. The presence of WMH is associated with older age, but not with seizure characteristics

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