RESUMO
To find the occurrence of adult onset idiopathic generalized epilepsy [AOIGE] in patients attending the neurology outpatient department of a tertiary care centre. A prospective observational study was conducted in the Neurology outpatient department of Civil Hospital, Karachi between January 2004 and December 2008. All patients with new onset generalized epilepsy at age >25 years and with no evidence of an epileptogenic focus on history, clinical examination, electrophysiology, radiology or laboratory investigations were included. A structured pro forma evaluating detailed history, neurological and other systemic examination, electrophysiological, radiological and laboratory investigations were used to rule out focal epilepsy. Results were analyzed using SPSS 15. A total of 426 patients were enrolled. On evaluation, majority [85.6%] were diagnosed as cases of symptomatic epilepsy with various etiologies like stroke, intracranial mass lesion, post infectious or post traumatic states and other rarer causes. In the remaining 61 patients [14.3%] there was no evidence of an epileptogenic focus on seizure history, clinical examination or investigations and were labeled as cases of AOIGE. Most patients [60.6%] were males and mean age of onset of seizures was 35.7 years. Three seizure types; generalized tonic clonic, myoclonic and absences were identified. It was concluded that although adult onset idiopathic generalized epilepsy is not a common occurrence, but it does exist. However, adult onset epilepsies must be thoroughly investigated to rule out symptomatic epilepsy which is commoner than idiopathic epilepsy in this age group