Introduction: 25,000-40,000 children in the US suffer each year from a first unprovoked seizure.
There is a great debate in the literature of wether to start anti-convulsive drug treatment following a first unprovoked seizure or not.
Objectives: The study aimed to assess the benefit of anti-convulsive drug treatment after a first unprovoked seizure in children and to evaluate the risk of seizure recurrence based on abnormal neurological background, neuroimaging studies and EEG test.
Study Design: A retrospective analysis of medical records from children aged 0-15 years, admitted to our department in 2012-2015 with a first unprovoked seizure, some were treated and some were not. The data was collected to Excel worksheet and statistically analised.
Results: Out of 116 patients, 35% suffered from another unprovoked seizure.
20.5% of the untreated children had a second unprovoked seizure versus 43% of the treated ones, in 4 months and 11 months, respectively (although in 59% of the treated patients with a recurrent seizure, drug levels were lower than the therapeutic range).
87.5% of those with abnormal neurological background suffered from another unprovoked seizure.
Seizure recurrence was observed in 34% of patients with pathological EEG test and in 45% of those with a normal one.
Conclusions: Seizure recurrence rate was higher in the treated group, although the treatment had postponed the second seizure in 7 months average.
In our study, the only prognostic factor was an abnormal neurological background, while the EEG test had no impact on seizure recurrence rate at all.
