M O N D A Y 714 Allergic Disease in US Children Is Associated with Increased Prevalence of Epilepsy Helen G. Durkin, PhD, Rauno O. Joks, MD, FAAAAI, Jonathan I. Silverberg, MD, PhD, MPH; SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Center for Allergy and Asthma Research, Brooklyn, NY, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, NY. RATIONALE: We previously demonstrated that a single tonic-clonic seizure in mice resulted in emigration of T and B lymphocytes from blood into brain, where B cells switched to expression of IgE. This suggested an association of allergic disease with epilepsy. METHODS: Weused the 2007–2008National Survey ofChildren’sHealth with a representative sample of 91,642 children age 0–17 years to determine if there is an association between the US prevalence of epilepsywith allergic disease, including asthma, eczema, hay fever and food allergies. RESULTS: The US prevalence of childhood epilepsy was 1.04% and was significantly associatedwith older age and lowerhousehold income.Children with any allergic disease had higher odds of epilepsy compared with non-allergic children (logistic regression, odds ratio [OR]51.66, 95% confidence interval [CI]51.27–2.17, P50.0002). In particular, the odds of being diagnosed with epilepsy increased with ever history of asthma (OR52.33, 95% CI51.48–3.69, P50.0003), current history of asthma (OR51.88, 95% CI51.29–2.75, P50.001), hay fever (OR51.73, 95% CI51.27–2.36, P50.0006) and food allergies (OR52.54, 95% CI51.52–4.25, P50.0004). These associations remained significant inmultivariate models that included age, sex, race/ethnicity and household income (P<_0.01). Similar results were found for current history of epilepsy. Further, as the number of allergic diseases increased, so did the odds of both everand currenthistory of epilepsy. CONCLUSIONS: There is a significant association between the US prevalence of epilepsy and allergic diseases in children. This suggests that allergic inflammation may contribute toward epileptogenesis.