RESUMO
Febrile convulsions are the commonest acute neurological disorder of early childhood. Although febrile seizures seldom cause severe brain insult, it has been recently suggested that febrile seizures can cause hippocampal damage and subsequent mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. This study was conducted to evaluate the serum and CSF levels of neuron specific enolase [NSE] as a marker of neuronal damage and lactate dehydrogenase [LDH] as a marker of metabolic derangement in infants and children with simple febrile seizures [n = 12], complex febrile seizures [n =36], and epilepsy [n =12]. All cases were subjected to full history taking and physical examination. Simultaneous serum and CSF sampling were done on admission for assessment of serum and CSF NSE and LDH levels. Results showed that patients with complex febrile seizures had significantly higher levels of serum and CSF NSE and LDH than cases with simple febrile seizures, whereas they had significantly lower levels of serum and CSF NSE than cases with epilepsy. Correlation studies showed significant negative correlation between age of the patients and serum and CSF levels of NSE in patients with complex febrile seizures, while significant positive correlation was found between duration of seizures and serum levels of LDH and between number of seizures and serum NSE levels in cases with complex febrile seizures. It is concluded from this study that complex febrile seizures are more injurious to the neurons than cases with simple febrile seizures especially in younger age group. Prompt diagnosis and guided management is recommended in such cases. NSE maybe a useful test for assessment of neuronal damage after febrile seizures