Trigger, risk factor, and self-organizing criticality – One more piece of the puzzle to explain increased mortality in epilepsy?

Abstract

In their recent published article entitled “Seizures and status epilepticus may be risk factor for cardiac arrhythmia or cardiac arrest across multiple time frames”, Rossi, et al., demonstrated that patients with active epilepsy or status epilepticus requiring hospitalization or emergency visits had increased risk of cardiac arrhythmia or cardiac arrest as early as the first day (for arrhythmia or 30 days for cardiac arrest), from the index event to as late as 180 days thereafter [1]. This is the first long-term epidemiologic study showing increased cardiovascular risk in multiple time frames after an index event of active epilepsy or status epilepticus.