Abstracts

RATIONALE: Retrospective analysis of 178 inpatient video-EEG recordings of 137 children under the age of 16 years monitored during the first operational years of our digital-video-EEG unit in Tampere University Hospital, Finland. METHODS: During a three year period (1997-1999) 137 children were investigated (178 recordings, 356 recording days). Half (46%) of the children had a known history of epilepsy and in 55 (40%) of the children the recordings were performed because of a clinical suspicion of epilepsy. In 10 cases the recordings wewe performed to confirm the non-epileptic nature of clinical events. The maximum duration of continuous recording was 4 days (96 hours). Most (79%) of the recordings lasted up to two days (48 hours). Repeated studies were performed in 30 children (22%). RESULTS: Epileptic seizures were captured in almost half (43%) of the recordings and non-epileptic in additional 17% (total amount of ictal recordings yielding 60%). The first ictal event occurred during the first 6 hours of the recording in 55% of all ictal cases. Seizure capture rate was 96% in children with seizures more than once a day (72% during the first 6 hours). Conversely, a seizure recording was obtained in only 27% of children with seizures less than once a week. In 93 (68%) cases video-EEG recording could reliably confirm the nature of the symptoms either as epileptic or not. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are comparable with previously published studies. Short term (< 24 hours) video-EEG recordings on outpatient basis should be favored in patients with seizures at least once a day. Video-EEG recordings proved to be a powerful method in differential diagnosis of many seizure-like symptoms which are common especially in children - and also in the seizure classification in children with established epilepsy.